She was far too prone to overlooking little details that would later prove to be very important, and casting unfamiliar spells in the heat of battle without fully thinking through the consequences. And when Harry next saw her, he was going to have words with her about it.

If, that is, he ever saw her again. Right now, he wasn't at all optimistic about that happening. Mainly because he was backed up against a wall in Hogwarts with a furious Severus Snape inches away from him.

"Brainless... idiotic... stupid... meddling... incompetent children!" Snape snarled into his face. "Do you have any idea what you've done??"

Well of course he didn't. He'd been as surprised as anyone at what happened. The three of them, Ron, Hermione and him, had tracked Voldemort's fifth Horcrux, the Crystal Harp of Ravenclaw, to a cave in the Welsh mountains, and had succeeded in getting past the traps guarding it... only to find Snape already there. Insults had been exchanged, followed by hexes, and a duel had ensued. Oddly, Snape hadn't flung any truly lethal hexes at them, merely deflecting and nullifying theirs. And then Hermione had cast what she had claimed earlier was a De-Ageing Charm of some kind which would reduce older and more powerful wizards to their age and skill level, thus evening the odds in a duel. This might even have been the case. Harry would never know now. Hermione had cast it at Snape at the same time as Ron had tried a Confundus spell; Snape had thrown himself out of the way with the reflexes of one who had spent most of his adult life around volatile and unstable compounds; and both spells had hit the Horcrux harp simultaneously. Which even then might not have been the end of the world had the harp not been made of crystal, a material which even the dimmest student knew reacted very strongly to and amplified any magic with which it came into contact. The harp had started vibrating and glowing, a wind none of them could see plucking at its strings and playing a disharmonious melody that set Harry's teeth on edge. Despite this, he couldn't stop staring at the harp and the bright lights dancing along its surface, even as Ron shoved Hermione to the ground and screamed at him to get away from it. Not even as the vibrations caused the cave to shake and cracks to start appearing in the ceiling did Harry move. In the end, it was Snape throwing himself at him and knocking Harry to the floor that probably saved Harry's life. With Snape shielding him from the shower of crystal shards that had rained down around them as the harp exploded, he'd lost consciousness.

He'd come round to find himself lying in Hogwarts Entrance Hall of all places, with Snape lying on top of him. A trickle of blood from where a shard had cut him was trickling down the other wizard's cheek and Snape looked to be unconscious. Which while being infinitely preferable to Snape being awake did mean that Harry was effectively trapped underneath him.

"Um. Profess-" No. Not that title. Not ever again. Not that 'Severus' exactly sounded right either. "Snape?" He nudged Snape's shoulder. "Wake up? I'd like to get up now." He gave Snape another nudge, and this time the other wizard grunted and stirred, rolling off Harry as he rubbed his head and blinked, taking in his surroundings. And then he'd seemed to realise where he was and who he was lying next to, had leapt to his feet, grabbed Harry by the front of his robes and started screaming abuse at him. Harry was getting just a bit fed up with it.

"No, actually, I don't know what I'm supposed to have done, Snape. Why don't you tell me what the hell happened and how we ended up here, if you're so smart?"

"Because, you foolish child," Snape seethed at him, "I don't know myself, but what I do know is that Tempus Reversit is a very powerful spell that is, not to put too fine a point on it, Dark Magic of the highest order that should not be used by children who don't have the first idea what they're doing! And to cast it on a Horcrux, and one made of crystal, no less..." Snape shook his head as he let Harry go, massaging his forehead as if in pain. "And then your idiot friend Weasley goes and adds Confundus to the mix, and the thing sends us who knows when. If we're in the same century we left we'll be lucky. The only good thing to come out of this whole mess is that at least the Horcrux is destroyed, but that's no good to anyone if there's still who knows how many others still in existence and the one who's supposed to finish the Dark Lord is lost in time!" Snape was glaring furiously at him, dark eyes blazing. "You, Potter, are an idiot."

Harry bit back the urge to protest his innocence; something else Snape had said had caught his attention.

"Destroying the Horcrux is a good thing?" Harry stared at Snape, confused. Had the Confundus charm done something to his mind?

"Of course it's a good thing," said Snape, exasperated. "It'll help get rid of the Dark Lord, which means I can finally get this thing off my arm and retire peacefully to the countryside and never see any of you blasted children again. Or at least, that was the plan, until you three arrived and buggered it all up!!"

"But..." Harry scratched his head, wondering if it was perhaps his brains that the Confundus had scrambled. "Don't you want Voldemort to win?"

"What, and spend the rest of my life being looked down on by snobby purebloods, constantly having to watch for the knife in my back? I think not, Potter."

"But you killed Professor Dumbledore!" Harry cried, not willing to let Snape get off that easily.

"I didn't have a choice!" Snape snarled back. "Foolish child, you know nothing, do you hear me, nothing!"

"There's always a choice!" Harry shouted. "And thanks to your choices, Professor Dumbledore is dead!"

"Actually," came a voice from behind them, "I rather think I'm alive and well. Or at least, I'm walking and breathing which is always a good start, don't you think?"

Harry and Snape both went very still, before Snape ever so slowly turned around to see who had spoken, allowing Harry to get a look as he moved. Behind Snape was a face familiar despite the auburn hair and beard, and smoother skin than either of them were used to seeing. Dressed in blue robes with silver trim and stars all over them, a much younger Albus Dumbledore was watching them both with a curiosity that was not as reassuring as it might have been.

All three of them stared at each other for a few brief seconds, before Snape's emotions finally got the better of him. Eyes rolling up into the sockets, the one-time Potions Master and bête noire of Gryffindor House promptly fainted.

Dumbledore had reacted with his usual calmness, as if two complete strangers turning up in the school, arguing about his death and then fainting was something that happened every day. He'd conjured a stretcher for Snape, before whisking them both off to the hospital wing for a much younger and prettier Madam Pomfrey to have a look at Snape after being sworn to secrecy.

"He's weak from shock and exhaustion and blood loss," she reported back. "I have no idea what happened to him but he'd suffered extensive if shallow lacerations to his head and back."

"He got hit in the back by an exploding crystal harp," Harry had said, acutely aware of how ridiculous this must sound to anyone who hadn't witnessed it. "He'd jumped on me to get me out of the way after it got hit by hexes and, um, blew up."

Madam Pomfrey had muttered something about boys being boys and why on earth they had to go around doing such stupid things all the time. Dumbledore had merely looked at Harry, raising an eyebrow as if to inquire what on earth they'd been casting hexes at an expensive magical artefact like that for. Harry just hoped there were quite a few in existence and that Dumbledore wasn't thinking of the Ravenclaw harp, but he had a feeling this was too much to hope for.

"I see," said Dumbledore. "And will he be all right?"

"He'll be fine," said Madam Pomfrey. "It's all flesh wounds, no magical damage. I've healed them all and given him some blood replenishment potions. He'll need to rest and take it easy, but once he wakes up, he'll be back to normal."

"Great," Harry muttered.

"Excellent news," Dumbledore smiled, as Madam Pomfrey disappeared back to her office. "Well now, young Mr, er...?"

"Harry, sir. Harry Potter," said Harry, feeling increasingly more bewildered with every passing moment. He hardly ever had to introduce himself, and the few times he did, the name immediately got a reaction. Dumbledore simply nodded.

"Mr. Potter. I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance." Dumbledore held out a hand, which Harry shook hesitantly, half fearing to touch blackened flesh. But no. That was yet to come. Many things were yet to come. "Are you by any chance related to Charlus Potter? You do remind me of him."

"Er... possibly," Harry replied. Truth be told, he had very little idea about any of his ancestors. For all he knew, Charlus Potter was his grandfather, or maybe he was just a Muggleborn not related to him at all.

"Well, it appears your young friend will be quite whole and healthy again in a day or two, so you have no need to fear on his account."

"I wasn't," Harry muttered. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

"Is that so? And yet he risked his life trying to protect you from a serious magical explosion. Crystal artefacts are powerful things, Mr. Potter. You could have been killed or seriously injured if he had not acted as swiftly as he had."

Harry just shrugged. "He does things like that. It's because he owed my dad a life-debt, he feels he has to keep saving my life all the time."

"Indeed," Dumbledore remarked. "But a life-debt only requires one to save one's creditor or their kin once in order to be discharged. I would not expect him to keep doing so if he was not a friend of yours."

"He's not," said Harry vehemently. "He killed-" He stopped, remembering that the man Snape had killed was standing right in front of him, and decided that this bit of information was probably best kept quiet. "He's no friend of mine," Harry finished.

"Killed, Mr. Potter?" said Dumbledore. "He hardly seems old enough to have done anything of the sort. In accident or through inaction, perhaps, but I very much doubt someone of his years is capable of murder."

"But... he's in his thirties," Harry whispered. "He went to school with my dad."

"Mr. Potter," said Dumbledore kindly, "that may or may not be the case. But the man we brought in here looks barely older than you. See for yourself." He let Harry to the bed where Snape was sleeping. He did look rather different, peacefully asleep rather than sneering or scowling, with the lines in his face smoothed out... no. Not smoothed out. Not there at all. The little wrinkles near the eyes, on the neck, the lines on the back of his hands, the calluses on the fingers, they weren't there any more. The stray grey hairs were all black. The skin was still pale, but a lot healthier looking than it had been before. And Snape's face looked less sharp, less intimidating. He looked a lot less like the teacher Harry knew and far more like the boy in the Pensieve.

"The De-Ageing curse," Harry whispered. "One of the spells that hit the harp was a De-Ageing curse, Tempus Reversit. It's made him younger as well as sending us back."

"Tempus Reversit??" The kindness had gone out of Dumbledore's voice. "That, Mr. Potter, is a very powerful Dark spell." He was giving Harry a very hard look indeed. "I think you had better tell me just how you and your companion came to be here. My office, Mr. Potter. Now, if you please."

And that was how Harry came to find himself in an office that would eventually become Professor McGonagall's, explaining just how he'd ended up in the past.

"It wasn't me who cast the De-Ageing Charm," said Harry, eager to get that out of the way before anything else. "My friends and I were on a dangerous magical quest, and one of us had learnt it as a way of reducing enemies to our age and skill level so we'd be less likely to get killed. That was all, I swear, we weren't using it for Dark reasons. We were only going to use it on Dark wizards who were trying to kill us."

"Ingenious," said Dumbledore. "But that doesn't explain why children were on a dangerous magical quest in the first place. Even given that your companion, Mr, er..."

"Snape. Severus Snape."

"Snape." Dumbledore frowned. "I don't recognise the name. Is he Muggleborn then?"

"Half-blood," said Harry, grimacing. "His mother's a witch, his father's Muggle." He noticed the frown on Dumbledore's face and realised how that could be taken the wrong way. "Er, not that I have anything against half-bloods or Muggleborns, sir. I'm half-blood myself, and one of my friends, the one who cast the Tempus Reversit, she's Muggleborn."

"I'm relieved to hear it, Mr. Potter. However, even given that there was an adult along..."

"He wasn't part of it!" said Harry indignantly. "He was on the other side! When we finally tracked down the Horcrux harp, he was already there."

"Horcrux – Mr. Potter, the Harp of Ravenclaw is most certainly not a Horcrux. It's warded and in the care of the Department of Mysteries, any attempt to make one out of it would not go unnoticed. I assume we are talking about the Harp of Ravenclaw, because there are certainly no other crystal ones around that I know of."

Harry nodded meekly, remembering that it wasn't a Horcrux yet, not in this time. "Yeah. That's it. Except it isn't a Horcrux yet, I don't think. Not if it's still at the Department of Mysteries. What year is it, anyway?"

"It's the 10th October, 1943," said Dumbledore faintly. "Mr. Potter, am I to take it that your friend fired Tempus Reversit at the Harp of Ravenclaw, which has been made into a Horcrux by some person so lost to the Light that they'll stoop to any means to achieve immortality, in conjunction with some other hexes, and that it exploded and sent you and Mr. Snape here? And that all this has not even happened yet, but at some indeterminate time in the future?"

"Um. Yes," said Harry sheepishly. "We're from 199-"

"QUIET!!!" Dumbledore roared, banging the desk with a ferocity that made Harry jump. "Tell me nothing more, boy! I do not want to know! Good god, as if you haven't told me enough already! To know that someone will steal a valuable and priceless magical artefact like the Harp of Ravenclaw and desecrate it by turning it into a Horcrux, of all things, is bad enough. If you say anything more, who knows what you might change? Who knows what damage you've already caused?" Dumbledore rubbed his forehead. "No, for all our sakes, both you and Mr. Snape must say nothing of who you really are or where you're really from. To be completely safe, it would be best to isolate you from everyone else in the school until we found a way of returning you to your own time, but who knows when that will be? And I'm not happy about removing your memories of the future either. No, the only ethical means of proceeding is to have you both disguise yourselves as newly arrived transfer students. How old are you?"

"I just turned seventeen, sir. Just finished sixth year. I don't know how old Snape is now, but I think he can't be much older than that."

"Well, you can both start sixth year again then," said Dumbledore. "I'm not having you disrupt lessons and possibly the entire timeline by introducing knowledge from the future. You can study for NEWTs from scratch, and we shall simply have to hope that OWLs in your time aren't too different. I can't imagine they would be – the basics never change."

Harry felt his heart sink at having to do his sixth year all over again. The only bright point was that Snape would be even more furious, having probably forgotten most of the curriculum and having thought he was finished with exams for good.

"We'll tell everyone you're both transfer students from abroad," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "As fate would have it, the New Zealand wizarding community is so isolated and insular, its non-Maori inhabitants still retain the British accent their ancestors once had. They even cast charms on their Muggleborn students to make them sound like English wizards and witches. A most strange custom, but who am I to pass judgement. At any rate, it will do as a cover story. Now all we have to work out is what to tell the headmaster..."

That did startle Harry. He'd completely forgotten that it wasn't Dumbledore in this time. He wondered if Headmaster Dippet would be as understanding as Dumbledore had proved to be. But in the end, it turned out not to be Dippet he had to worry about, as a voice came from behind him.

"Tell me what, Albus?" Harry turned to see the Headmaster himself walk in, looking much as he had in Tom Riddle's memories. Harry felt his heart sink. Dippet did not look pleased. That, however, wasn't the worst thing. Entering the room behind him was the smirking figure of Tom Riddle.

It was all Harry could to do not to leap from his chair and hex the other boy there and then. One little curse and the wizarding world would be safe, Sirius would still be alive, would never have gone to prison, his parents would be alive, so many other people would still be alive, sane, whole in body and mind, everything would be all right...

Apart from the little fact that he would most likely rip time and space to pieces in the process, or end up in Azkaban for his trouble. Scowling, Harry settled for glaring at him. Riddle said nothing, merely raising an eyebrow as he remained standing unobtrusively by the door. However, the appraising, intrigued look in his eyes did not bode well. Harry had Tom Riddle's attention, and few who got themselves noticed by Tom Riddle emerged the better for it.

Snape came unwillingly back to consciousness, haunted by dreams involving annoying Gryffindors, Potter being his usual idiot self, Albus Dumbledore looking far younger than he had any right to, and for some reason, an exploding crystal harp. Still, it made a change from the usual dreams of death and destruction.

Then he opened his eyes, blinked and realised that far from being in his bed at Spinner's End, he was back at Hogwarts, in the hospital wing no less. Next to him, the far too young Albus Dumbledore from his dream was watching him with a mixture of sadness and suspicion.

"Oh dear god," Snape moaned, closing his eyes again. "I'm not dreaming."

"No, Severus," came the response. "You are not."

He knew his name. It was getting worse. "Please tell me you learnt my name because the Potter brat told you and not any other way."

"How else would I know it, Severus?" Dumbledore replied. "We have only just met."

Snape could only laugh bitterly. "Oh, if only." He tried to sit up, resolutely trying to ignore the spinning sensation in his brain that made it feel as if his head was about to fall off. "What time is it?"

"Just coming up to eight o'clock in the evening. If, however, you wish to know what year you ended up in, then it is the 10th of October, and the year is 1943."

And Dumbledore appeared to know about the time travel. Perfect. Just perfect. Snape tried to ignore the twinge in his head that was surely signifying an oncoming migraine. "So you've spoken to Potter then. What did he tell you?"

"The truth. That you both came from the 1990s after an accident with a time reversing charm and a Horcrux. I told him I did not wish to know any more." Dumbledore was looking at Snape, appearing rather intrigued. "Still, I must admit, you do interest me. Mr. Potter dislikes you intensely, the feeling appears to be mutual, he seems to think you're working for the dark wizard that created the Horcrux, and yet you save his life by endangering your own. As it is, you were quite badly hurt by pieces of crystal, and the time reversing magic has made you young again. And yet you've still got the mind of a much older wizard. Yes, you are a very interesting man, Mr. Snape."

"Professor," Snape said before he could stop himself. "I happen to be a fully qualified academic and a well-respected teacher." Well, he had been at one point anyway, but he preferred not to think about that right now, especially not with Dumbledore sitting right there. Then it clicked what Dumbledore had just said. "Wait a moment. Young again??"

Dumbledore nodded. "Oh yes." He conjured a mirror for Snape to look at himself with. "See for yourself."

Snape looked. He immediately wished he hadn't. His teenage self was looking right back at him, all pale skin and lank hair and far too many angles. And yet the eyes were different – they were the same eyes he remembered his older self having, not nearly as insecure and wary as they'd really been back then, but far colder and harder. Not only that, he could practically see the power emanating from his reflection. His magic was unaffected, it would seem. It was very disconcerting, seeing an older man's soul and magical aura on a young man's face. Particularly when the face in question was, to Snape's eyes, as unprepossessing as his teenage self.

At no point did it ever occur to Snape that some might find that combination of youth and power deeply alluring.

"Put it away," Snape rasped, roughly thrusting the mirror back at Dumbledore. "I've no wish to spend any more time than is strictly necessary staring at my teenage self in the mirror. I had enough of that when I actually was one."

"But you are one," said Dumbledore. "And until we can find a way of returning you and Mr. Potter to your own time, you won't have any other option than to live as one. Fortunately the Headmaster is aware of the situation, and we have a cover story in place for you both. You're to pose as transfer students from New Zealand whose families wanted you to have a Hogwarts education for your NEWTs. You're to start your sixth year tomorrow."

"WHAT??" Snape cried, aghast at the thought of having to study his NEWTs again. "Albus, tell me you're joking."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid not, dear boy. The only alternative was to put you both in suspended animation but we decided that wouldn't be ethical. And while we are on the subject, might I remind you to call me Professor Dumbledore in future? I don't know what sort of relationship you had with my future self, but you're going to be one of my pupils now. It would hardly be appropriate for you to call me Albus in public."

"I suppose not," Snape grimaced, quelling the disappointment that was welling up within. Now that that privilege had been revoked, he began to realise just how wrong it felt to be calling him 'sir' or Professor Dumbledore. Not after all they'd been through together. Except in this time, they hadn't, had they? All that was yet to come.

Dumbledore seemed to sense some of what Snape was feeling, as his manner softened.

"But under the circumstances, I think it would be acceptable for you to call me Albus in private."

Despite himself, Snape couldn't help but smile.

"Thank you, Professor."

"My dear boy, there is really no need to thank me. But if you insist on doing so, I shall have to ask you exactly what our relationship was. It's clear we know each other in some personal capacity, and we're hardly enemies. And what Mr. Potter had to say has intrigued me greatly. Tell me. The dark wizard who made the Horcrux – were you really working for him?"

Snape raised his eyes to meet Dumbledore's. He never really had been any good at lying to him. "At one time. I even took his Mark, entirely of my own free will. I was his loyal servant for over two years."

"And?" said Dumbledore, clearly aware that there was far more to it than that. Snape continued to meet his eyes, lowering a few of his Occlumency shields so Dumbledore could see that he was telling the truth.

"And I don't know how much I can tell you, but I can tell you this. I walked away from him and did not die. I turned, and became a spy for the other side." Snape hesitated, before deciding that perhaps he could at least tell Dumbledore this. "Your side."

Dumbledore's eyes did widen at that, before he broke eye contact and turned away, clearly affected.

"That's enough," he whispered. "Tell me no more. I feel I already know too much as it is. To know that another Dark lord will rise, a maker of Horcruxes, perhaps worse than Grindelwald is, and that it will fall to me to lead the fight..."

"Not you alone," said Snape, impulsively reaching out for Dumbledore's arm. "There will be many of us with you, and the task of ending it is given to another. And..." He hesitated, before shrugging. In for a penny, in for a pound, as his father always used to say. "And I will be with you. For what it's worth."

Dumbledore stared at him, seemingly unnerved by what was by Snape standards quite an open display of affection. Then he smiled, his aura suddenly flaring as the full flow of his magic enveloped Snape and Dumbledore clapped the younger wizard's arm and pulled him into an embrace. Snape nearly collapsed under the weight of the power involved. He'd always been sensitive to other people's magical fields, and the more powerful the wizard or witch, the more the magic overwhelmed him. It wasn't just revenge and ambition that had brought him to Voldemort's side – it had been the sheer power emanating from the man. He'd not been able to resist it. Lucius Malfoy had had a similar effect, although not as marked, and it had been the most uncomfortable effects that Potter and Black's magic had had on him that had made him so vulnerable to their tormenting. Even the younger Potter could do it, which was why Snape had always made a point of fighting him. And Dumbledore...

Dumbledore's magic unfolded in benevolence had once done him in, bringing him sobbing to his knees in remorse. It was threatening to do the same again. I have missed you, Albus, I am so sorry, I had no other choice, I couldn't let Draco die, I hope you understand, please forgive me. He clung to Dumbledore, forcing his Occlumency shields into place and fighting the tears in his eyes. For a long moment they stayed like that, until Snape felt able to keep himself together. Then and only then did he back away. Dumbledore released him, still smiling, although his eyes thankfully had not yet developed their trademark twinkle of later years. The years had made him less rather than more cynical, it seemed.

"Yes, my boy, you are a most interesting young man indeed," Dumbledore remarked. "I very much look forward to teaching you over the coming year. Very much indeed."

Snape tried to suppress the ridiculous feeling of pride that threatened to overcome him, not entirely successfully. Then he noticed the sadness in Dumbledore's eyes and then he had no trouble squashing the pride.

"What?" he asked, suspicious. "Is something wrong?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, not exactly. It's just a shame you're not Gryffindor. Mr. Potter told us you were Slytherin, and while it's a worthy house, it's also got some very Dark elements lurking in it, and I really don't like the idea of exposing you to them. You seem like an intelligent and aware young man with a lot of potential and a certain sense of honour, and I worry that the less scrupulous elements might try and corrupt you."

It was all Snape could do not to burst out laughing at this. "Albus, I grew up in Slytherin. I believe you could say I've been there, done that, got the Dark Mark." He pulled back his sleeve in what would have been a dramatic gesture... if his left forearm hadn't been as bare as it had been the day he was born. Snape stared at it, shocked. It had been there for the last two years, reminding him of everything about himself he was least proud of, and even during the years when Voldemort had been gone, he'd been able to feel its traces. Not now, though. It was more than faded, it was gone, absolutely gone. Tempus Reversit didn't just de-age, it physically reversed time. The magic that had made him young again had taken the Mark with it. Snape could count himself lucky it hadn't taken his memory and magical skill as well – doubtless it was only Weasley's Confundus Charm that had prevented that.

"It's gone," he whispered, tracing the skin with a finger. "It's really gone!" He looked up at Dumbledore, scarcely able to believe it. "The Dark Lord, he marked all his followers. And mine's not there any more. I'm free. I'm really... free." He sank back on to the bed, still staring mutely at his arm. After a few moments, Dumbledore patted his shoulder.

"You have a second chance, my boy. Use it well, whether you ever make it back to your own time or not."

Of course, the second chance would have stood a far better chance if Snape had requested re-Sorting, or even if he had been put into Slytherin House in a time that wasn't the autumn of 1943. If what had damned him before hadn't been lying in wait, looking to take advantage. Tom Riddle had witnessed their arrival, watched Dumbledore find them, and immediately gone in search of the Headmaster, determined to ensure the two new arrivals did not find themselves brainwashed by the one member of staff not well-disposed towards him. And when Dumbledore had left Snape with Slughorn, no one had been more pleased than Tom Riddle when Slughorn had naturally called on one of his most trusted prefects to induct the new arrival.

No one had felt more like he'd been punched than Snape. He'd thought he'd got used to Voldemort's power. Age, cynicism, disillusionment, moral revulsion, near-constant Occlumency use; they'd all served to weaken the effect it had on him. Transferring his allegiance to Dumbledore instead had only helped matters along – being a favoured follower of another powerful wizard had made Voldemort's power irrelevant. But that Dumbledore was gone, and his memory caused more harm than healing for Snape these days.

So when a young and handsome Tom Riddle had walked in, radiating all the vibrant power of youth and an intact soul, Snape had been taken thoroughly by surprise. The Occlumency shields had held, just, but Snape hadn't escaped unscathed. He'd barely been able to fight the urge to sink to his knees and prostrate himself. As it was, he couldn't get the thought of submitting to the Dark Lord-to-be's every whim out of his head, even though it would most likely destroy him in the process.

Unfortunately for him, it seemed that Tom knew it. As soon as they'd left Slughorn's office, Tom turned to him, looking him over appreciatively.

"Well now, Severus," Tom remarked. "You've come a long way to be here, haven't you?"

Snape didn't trust himself to do anything other than nod.

"Was it intentional, or were you sent?" Tom inquired, looking deceptively kind. Snape knew far better.

"I had no real choice in the matter; my parents -", he began, eager to keep to his cover story, but Tom cut him off.

"May well not even be alive yet, much less attending Hogwarts," Tom said, irritated. He took Snape by the arm, twisting him around and backing him up against a wall. "Come now, Severus, let's not beat about the bush. You and that other young boy, you're not really from New Zealand, either of you. You're from the future, a magical accident or so your friend said."

"We're not friends," Snape managed to growl. Overwhelmed he might be, but his feelings about Harry had a way of overcoming any other emotion he might be feeling. "We just ended up here by accident."

"You detest each other. Interesting," Tom murmured, tracing Snape's cheek. "I'll have to remember that. But you're both time travellers."

"Yes," Snape hissed. Lying to the Dark Lord was never wise at the best of times, and this was far from the best of times.

"From what year?" Tom purred, an undertone of menace in his voice. Power flared around him, bearing down on Snape, willing him to give in... and Snape felt his control give.

"1996," he moaned, unable to stop himself. I'll do anything you want, just don't take the magic away, just let me be near it... Tom smiled, delighted.

"You're a Sensitarius," he breathed. "How utterly marvellous!" He leaned closer, so close that his entire body was pressing against Snape's, his magic surrounding him like a giant pair of wings, making it hard for Snape to breathe. Close enough so that Snape couldn't help but feel Tom's cock rubbing hard against his thigh. Shocked, he tried desperately to push Tom away, reaching both hands up to his chest... but he found himself only clinging on to Tom's robes, his body betraying him as his own erection strained in his trousers.

"Yes," Tom breathed. "I like Sensitarii. When they're exposed to powerful enough magic, they react in such very interesting ways." He rubbed himself up against Snape, their erections meeting. It was all Snape could do to stay on his feet.

"Tell me, Severus," Tom breathed into his ear. "What am I doing in 1996? Am I wealthy? Famous?" He paused, inhaling deeply, his eyes raking over Severus's body. "Powerful?"

"Yes," Snape gasped. "Oh yes. Everyone... knows your... oh god... name." Even if they are all too afraid to speak it.

Tom chuckled, a deep, throaty noise that made Snape shiver at what it might portend. "Excellent..." he hissed. "I think I like you, my little Sensitarius from the future. Yes, the other one is also rather intriguing... but I think you have the most potential." He backed off, letting Snape go and brushing his robes down as if nothing untoward had happened. Snape stumbled, struggling to keep his footing and gasping as Tom walked away. Unable to stop himself, he staggered after the other boy, desperate to stay near that intoxicating magic that swirled around Tom like an extra cloak, one woven of darkness and mystery and poison. Tom glanced over his shoulder, utterly impassive. "Hurry up then. And smarten yourself up too. It wouldn't do to meet the rest of Slytherin House looking like that, would it?"

He'd not changed much, Snape reflected. Only sixteen, and already Snape could see the personality of the Dark Lord that was to come. Hastily rearranging his robes and his hair, Snape hurried after him, hating the way he just fell into obeying him, hating himself for being so weak and easily overcome. Tom intoned the password, and stepped into the common room. It fell silent as Tom walked in. Snape followed, roughly suppressing any feelings of uncertainty. Slytherins could sniff out weakness like sharks could blood, and like sharks, they wouldn't hesitate to start circling.

Fortunately, years of staring down teenage Slytherins and emerging the victor stood him in good stead. Teacherly reflexes kicked in, and Snape merely swept the room with his eyes, raising an eyebrow as one blond pureblood who was almost certainly Abraxas Malfoy sneered at him for about five seconds, before faltering and looking away. Excellent start. Of course, it could just be Tom Riddle's patronage, but nevertheless Snape was prepared to capitalise on it. Tom proceeded to introduce Snape in a rather bored tone of voice as a transfer student before turning and heading for a nearby table, clearly indicating for Snape to follow. Snape did so, but stopped short as a young witch made her way over to Tom's side, smiling shyly. A young witch with pale skin, sharp features and long black hair hanging by the sides of her face like a pair of curtains, and a copy of Advanced Potions-Making poking out of her bag. Snape felt the blood drain out of his face, wanting to scream at her to get away, to run now, to talk to any wizard in the room but Tom; wanting for Tom to prey on anyone, anyone at all, but the witch now approaching him.

Eileen Prince, Slytherin, fifth-year, Captain of the Gobstones Team, skilled Potions maker and Sensitaria, was walking over to Tom Riddle and worst of all, she was looking far too happy, innocently happy. Snape held his breath. If he was reacting to Tom that way, despite all the years of experience and knowing what he really was, what effect was he having on her? He wasn't at all sure he wanted to know.

He could barely watch as Eileen approached Tom, fluttering her eyelashes.

"Hello, Tom," she said softly, her Lancashire accent lacking the hardness it had accumulated by the time Severus had been born. It marked her out as less than wealthy, not part of the sophisticated circle of privilege that the likes of the Blacks and Malfoys moved in. It marked her out as weak.

Tom barely glanced at her. "Prince. Did you want something?"

Eileen faltered at once. "Tom?" she whispered. "Did I... I mean, was it... is something wrong?"

Tom slowly turned to look at her, eyes gleaming murderously. It took all Snape had not to fling himself between them and scream at Tom to leave her alone... but that would be suicidal, even now. Had Tom not made his first kill before his fifth year was out? Had he not already killed Myrtle and the Riddles by now? Snape would prefer not to join that list.

"Nothing is wrong, Prince," Tom said coldly. "The only thing wrong is you bothering me. Do I look like I'm remotely interested in your company?"

"But... you said... I thought..." Eileen whispered, her eyes full of betrayal.

"What?" said Tom, amusement creeping into his voice. "You thought I'd be interested in a pathetic little peasant like you? Dream on, Prince. You're not a bad fuck, but I can do far better than you."

Eileen stared at him for all of a second, her face starting to crumple, before she turned and ran, desperate to get out of Slytherin before the whole House witnessed her bursting into tears. Snape gritted his teeth and stared into space, stony-faced and hidden behind his strongest Occlumency shields. He did not need to know that his mother had slept with Tom Riddle in her fifth year, presumably losing her virginity in the process, he could only hope. Rage boiled within him, and he could feel his magic clawing at him, eager for a chance to avenge her on her tormentor. But there was nothing he could do, nothing. Tom was just too powerful. Resolving to watch and wait, Snape could only sit and listen to Tom brag.

Harry meanwhile had been settling in uneventfully. Despite the initial shock of seeing Tom Riddle, things had otherwise gone as well as could be expected. Dippet had sent Tom away, although Harry strongly suspected the boy had been eavesdropping somehow, before asking lots of probing questions and making Harry put his memories in a Pensieve so he could see just how they'd arrived. More questions had been asked, and finally Dippet had decided allowing them to study at Hogwarts in the guise of transfer students from New Zealand was the only reasonable course of action, and that they should enter the houses they'd been in in their own time. He'd then gone, leaving Dumbledore to deal with everything. Dumbledore had promised to give Harry and Snape any assistance they needed to research a way home, including access to the Restricted Section, before escorting Harry to Gryffindor personally and placing him in the care of a young Minerva McGonagall. She'd not actually changed an awful lot. She was still capable of making Harry feel like he'd done something wrong just by looking at him.

That had been yesterday. He'd enquired after Snape, feeling somehow obliged to keep an eye on him, and been told he was still in the hospital wing under sedation but would probably be released later on that evening, once he'd come round. That had been enough to satisfy him, and Harry had concentrated on his schoolwork. It hadn't been difficult by any means – it wasn't that long ago that he'd been studying it the first time around after all. Socially, things had been even easier. Two red haired twin first years who reminded him of the Weasley twins, and as fate would have it turned out to be their maternal uncles Gideon and Fabian, had asked him about the scar.

"Did it hurt?" the smaller and livelier of the two who had introduced himself as Gideon asked, wide-eyed.

"And was it very dangerous?" asked Fabian with a rather ghoulish grin. While quieter, Harry had the feeling that Fabian was probably the one who came up with all the twins' more frightening ideas. Grinning, Harry decided to give them a story to remember.

"I got attacked by an evil Dark wizard," he told them, trying his best to look very serious. "It was just the two of us left after he'd killed everyone else, and it was him or me. So he flung the Killing Curse at me – you know, that Unforgivable one that kills you on the spot and that can't be countered or blocked."

Gideon and Fabian nodded, both gazing at him, their attention caught. As children of a pureblood family, they knew this sort of thing already.

"Well, he threw the curse at me, and it hit me right there. I should have been dead. I nearly was. But luckily for me, someone else had just died to protect me, and that sacrifice saved my life. It bounced right back and got him instead, and I ended up with the scar. That was years ago, and it never did heal. To this day, it's still there, and it will be for the rest of my life, as a reminder."

"Wow," both twins breathed, awestruck. Quite a few other Gryffindors nearby were rather impressed as well, and the common room broke out into quite a bit of chatter. Minerva, however, was rather less convinced.

"Mr. Potter, you don't honestly expect us to believe that, do you now?" she said, folding her arms. "No one survives the Killing Curse, and you're hardly old enough for Dark wizards to be interested in killing you, are you?"

Harry only wished that were true.

"Now stop telling tales to impressionable young bairns and tell us how you really got that scar."

"Yes," a blond Irish fifth year by the name of Seamus MacDougall called out, "I've got a twenty Sickle bet going with Madhu Patil about it. He reckons it's from a Potions accident, I reckon it's from something completely mundane like falling off your broom."

"You'd better pay him then," Harry returned. "I've only fallen off my broom once, and I wasn't even hurt." The fact that Dumbledore had levitated him to the ground was neither here nor there. However, the reminder of home and all the talk of how he got his scar was making him uncomfortable. While Minerva was angrily telling the boys off for gambling, Harry took the opportunity to slip out of the room and go for a walk.

He'd made it to the Entrance Hall and was heading for the main doors when someone emerged from the dungeons and crashed straight into him, sending them both sprawling. Harry disentangled himself from them and staggered to his feet, feeling not a little irritated at being knocked down. He noticed Slytherin colours on the uniform and did not bother with his usual politeness.

"Watch where you're going, you could have hurt someone," he snapped. The figure looked up, and Harry registered three things. First that they were a girl, and probably a bit younger than him at that. Secondly, that her face was streaked with tears which she was now furiously trying to wipe away, as if that would prevent him from seeing them. And third, that he'd seen her before and even if Hermione hadn't shown him that picture, the resemblance to Snape was too uncanny to ignore.

"You're Eileen Prince," he blurted out, without thinking. Eileen looked sharply at him, brow furrowed in a way Harry found only too familiar from years of learning Potions from her son.

"Who's asking?" she snapped. Harry blinked at the Lancashire accent. He'd had no idea Snape's mother was from up north – Snape's accent had always sounded firmly southern to him. But that was beside the point. Eileen was glaring at him rather suspiciously, and the last thing he wanted was for her to go running to Riddle or someone and tell him that the new Gryffindor student who'd been here less than a day had recognised her right away.

"Harry. My name's Harry. Harry Potter." He briefly considered making up a cover story to explain how he knew her, but in the end decided against it. Besides, he was curious as to who'd upset her. Please don't tell me Snape's got out of the hospital wing and reduced his own mother to tears. He wouldn't put it past him. "Erm. Are you all right? You look a bit upset."

Eileen rubbed furiously at her eyes with the sleeve of her robe, before losing patience and declaring, "Lacrimosa Arrestus!" The tears vanished immediately, and Eileen shook back her hair, glaring at Harry with her arms folded.

"And why are you so keen to know?" she demanded. "You could be anyone. Why should I tell you?"

Just like Snape. Harry was beginning to see where he got his prickly streak from.

"I don't know. Because you're upset and I thought you might need someone to talk to?" he said irritably. He was beginning to wish he hadn't bothered now. Honestly, he'd had quite enough of pain in the backside Slytherins to last a lifetime. He turned to walk away, but then something unexpected happened. Eileen called after him, her voice softer than it had been.

"Wait. Don't go. I'm sorry I snapped at you. It's just..." She hesitated, before apparently deciding she had nothing to lose by opening up. "I've just had enough of men pretending to be nice, being all kind and caring, when all they really want to do is use you then drop you when they've had their fun and then humiliate you in front of everyone." She was staring into space, hate in her eyes, and Harry had a strange inkling he knew who she might be talking about.

"Yes," said Harry firmly. "Yes, they're total bastards, aren't they?" Eileen did raise an eyebrow at this.

"Dated many of them, have you?" she asked, a sly grin on her face. Harry immediately regretted going for the girl bonding avenue. It really didn't work unless you were one. Or unless you were gay of course. Which Harry wasn't. Despite that surreptitious fondle with Seamus early on in sixth year – his first sixth year that is. Or the snog with Zacharias Smith in fifth year that had taken them both by surprise, mutually freaked them out and sent them fleeing. Or that night the summer before sixth year when the twins had visited for the night, stayed up with Harry and Ron, fed them with Firewhiskey and after Ron had passed out, promptly pounced on Harry for a rather enjoyable threesome, but that didn't count because he'd been drunk and it was just the twins messing around, and you could only lose your virginity with a girl, right? Besides, he'd had a girlfriend. He wasn't gay. Definitely not. He resolutely ignored the treacherous little voice at the back of his mind whispering the dread word 'bisexual'.

"No," he said uncertainly. Eileen just nodded in a way that was far too understanding for Harry's liking.

"Of course not, dear," she said, winking at him. "But I take it I'm not your type?"

"No, not really," Harry replied, before realising that hadn't been the most tactful of responses. "Um. Er. That is to say, you seem very nice and I'm sure lots of people think you're really cool and pretty..."

"They bloody well don't, and we both know it," she interrupted. "Don't mince your words, Harry, I'm no beauty as we can both see." Her voice softened and she smiled, the expression making her look, if not devastatingly attractive, friendly and kind-hearted at least. "Thank you. As Gryffindors go, you're not so bad, you know. Most of them wouldn't look twice at a Slytherin in trouble. You're different. Nicer."

"So are you," said Harry, finding himself drawn to her. "Most Slytherins would have hexed me on the spot as soon as they realised I'd seen them crying." Or flung Cruciatus at me, Harry thought grimly, remembering how Draco had reacted.

"Aye, well," said Eileen, shrugging. "There's only one person I want to hex at the moment, and it's not you. I'm saving my hexes for Tom bloody Riddle and that's a fact. Bastard." She spat on the ground. Harry felt himself warming to her even more. He'd been right.

"He is that," said Harry.

"You've only been here a day, how would you know?" Eileen asked. "Come to that, how'd you know who I was? I think there's things you're not telling me, Harry Potter." The suspicious look had returned, and while Harry no longer believed she'd betray him to her fellow Slytherins, he didn't really want to tell her the truth either.

"Let's just say Riddle's not well liked in Gryffindor and leave it at that, shall we?" he said delicately. "As for you, the Gryffindor Gobstones captain mentioned you. He's not a big fan of yours."

"Really," said Eileen, her voice decidedly neutral. "I shall be sure to tell Melinda Johnson that when I next see her, we actually get on quite well when we're not playing each other." She walked closer until she was inches away from him, staring at him sternly. "You're not really from New Zealand, are you."

Harry closed his eyes. He'd only been here a day and someone had found him out already.

"Don't tell anyone?" he said hopefully.

"Well, not if you tell me who you really are and where you're really from," said Eileen.

"Here?" said Harry, looking around nervously. There was no telling who might be listening. Riddle, for one.

"All right," said Eileen, relenting a little. "Not here. Come with me." She led him away and before long had found a nearby classroom. After checking it was empty and bereft of eavesdropping spells, she closed the door and motioned for him to sit down.

Harry still wasn't taking any chances. He cast a few Secrecy Charms before taking a seat across the aisle from where she was.

"Please promise you won't tell anyone," he said desperately. Eileen nodded.

"I promise," she said. "You saw me crying and didn't hex me. This is the least I can do. So come on then. Tell me."

"You might not believe a word of this," Harry warned her. Eileen just smiled.

"Try me."

So Harry told her. Not everything, of course, and hate Snape as he did, he could hardly tell the girl her own son would end up working for a Dark Lord, but he told her the basics. That he was from fifty three years in the future, where there was a war raging between the forces of Light, and a Dark Lord called Voldemort.

"Except everyone's too scared to say the name, so most people just say You-Know-Who," Harry explained. Eileen barely reacted.

"He must be powerful then," was all she said.

"He is. But not invulnerable. The only thing that makes him unstoppable are his Horcruxes."

Eileen's eyes did widen at that. She evidently knew what they were.

"More than one??" she whispered. "Good god, my father told me stories of Dark wizards and witches of the past who'd make Horcruxes but they only ever made one each! To make more..." She shook her head, clearly shocked. "Go on."

Harry went on to explain how he and some of his friends had been hunting the Horcruxes to destroy them, but when they'd found one, they'd met one of Voldemort's followers. After a battle, a De-Ageing Hex had hit the Horcrux along with a Confundus Charm, and it had exploded. Snape had thrown himself on to Harry to get him out of the way, and somehow the explosion had carried them both back in time.

"So we ended up here," Harry finished. "They've put us both in the Houses we were in first time around, and we're starting sixth year again. Hopefully nothing's changed that much."

"I doubt Hogwarts has changed much in all the time it's been open," said Eileen faintly. "But good god, Harry, if keeping up with the work's your main worry, your priorities need sorting out."

Harry laughed. "Oh god, don't they just? I've got to try and find a way home, Voldemort's doing god only knows what in the future, and I have to try not to screw up time by making changes. I'm clearly doomed. Bloody hell, I'm already making friends with you. That might change things on its own."

"Just by being here, you're going to do something to change things," said Eileen softly. "You can hardly not talk to anyone. But for what it's worth, I'm glad you talked to me." She reached out and took his hand. Harry looked up with a start, realising she was smiling.

"You're all right, you know, Harry Potter," Eileen told him. "And if you need my help trying to find a way home, all you need to do is ask. I'll help in any way I can. I'm an excellent researcher, you know. And I'm very good at Potions." She lowered her voice. "I'm also rather handy with the Dark Arts but don't tell anyone that." She winked at him. Harry could only laugh weakly.

"Snape's rather good with those as well," he said.

"Is he?" Eileen raised an eyebrow. "I'll have to talk to him and compare notes. That's if I can pry him away from Riddle's side. I'm very much afraid he's already latched on to your friend. I hope he keeps his wits about him. Is he the naïve and innocent type?"

"Hardly," said Harry darkly. So Snape was hanging around with Tom Riddle, was he? It figured.

"He might be all right then," said Eileen. "As long as he's not Sensitarius or anything."

"Sensitarius?" Harry asked. He'd not heard the word before.

"Means strong magic has unusual effects on you," Eileen explained. "Most purebloods have it to some degree – they can sense and react to strong magic, but mostly it's in harmless and minor ways that just give them an indication of how strong the other person is. But with Sensitarii it's different. They react in far more extreme ways. Strong magic can bring them to their knees, and they'll do anything to be near it. Only Occlumency helps resist it. I'm one – it's how Riddle won me over. He's got really strong magic, and when he's handsome and charming and showing an interest in a witch like me, not even my Occlumency was any good." She sighed, the memory of why she'd fled Slytherin in the first place returning. "Oh god, the next few days are going to be a nightmare."

Harry felt for her. She was hardly the worst off of Tom Riddle's many victims, now or in the future, but somehow her plight bothered him more. Perhaps it was simply because he had grown to like her, and because they now shared secrets, and because she'd offered to help him despite only just having met him. Getting up, he crossed the space between them and pulled her into his arms.

"It'll be all right," he promised. "I'll keep an eye out for you. If you need me, come and find me."

Eileen went very still for a second or two, before hugging him back.

"Thank you," she whispered. She pressed him tightly to her, before stepping back, hastily re-arranging her hair and clothes. For some reason, she looked rather flushed.

"You've got quite strong magic, you know," she said, sounding slightly flustered. Now it was Harry's turn to blush – he could guess what sort of effects Sensitarii experienced.

"Er... sorry."

"Oh, don't apologise," Eileen said, flashing him a smile. "It's rather nice having a friend with strong magic and a nice personality. So rare the two actually mix." She picked up her bag. "I'll see you in the library after lessons finish?"

"OK," said Harry. He watched her leave and wondered what had just happened. He'd somehow managed to befriend Snape's mum, told her where he was really from and agreed to let her help him research a way home. It was a very surreal feeling. But allies were thin on the ground and he needed all the help he could get.

Because, he had to face it, he really wasn't going to get much from Snape. The following day, Snape ambushed him as breakfast finished and hauled him off into a deserted classroom.

"Potter."

"Snape," Harry growled. "What do you want?"

Snape grimaced, distaste writ large on his face. "Much as it pains me to admit this, the current circumstances have left us both with few options. Therefore I wish to propose a truce."

"A truce?"

Snape sighed wearily. "Yes, Potter, a truce. An armistice. A cessation of hostilities. I trust the concept is not entirely unfamiliar to you?"

"No, but..." Harry glared at Snape, amazed that after everything that had happened, Snape could just be standing here and demanding that they just forget it all and be friends. "You're a Death Eater! And even now, you're hanging out with Tom Riddle! Why on earth should I trust you??"

"Because I don't want to be here any more than you do!" Snape hissed. "For god's sake, Potter, I am not asking you to like me. I'm fairly certain there's no one I'd like to have less as a friend. But if we are ever to find out just what that spell of Granger's did, we will need to work together. Because I for one do not want to spend the rest of my life as Tom Riddle's pet!"

"Why not? It suited you well enough the first time round!" Harry snapped.

For a single moment, Snape's eyes bulged and Harry thought he was about to go for him. But Snape got himself back under control. Wrenching back his left sleeve, he revealed his newly-bare forearm.

"I am not the Dark Lord's creature, Potter!" Snape seethed. "I have not been the Dark Lord's creature since I turned to Dumbledore, before you were even born! Riddle has taken an interest in me, having learned that we are both out of time. I don't know how, but he was always good at finding out secrets. But this time, this time he does not have me in his service! Here at least, I am my own man." He took a deep breath, shaking his hair back. "And I intend to stay that way. Potter." The anger seemed to die out of him. "I do not care what you think of me. I am not proposing we become friends. But I know that you're as eager to return home as I am, and that if we are to get through this, we will need to work together. Well, Potter? What do you say?"

Harry wasn't sure what to say, truth be told. He didn't know whether to believe Snape's declaration of neutrality or not. But Snape was right about one thing: he did want to get home quite badly, and he was short on options. What choice did he have?

"All right," he said. "I'll work with you. But if you betray me again, believe me, I'll turn on you."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Snape said, lips twisting into a mockery of a smile. With an exaggerated bow, he swept out of the door.

"Dark Arts for the Undeclared?" Harry read, looking at some of the titles Snape had selected. "The Key of Ahriman? Flux Incapacitors, or Paradox Avoidance in Time Travel? Where do you find this stuff? I've never even heard of any of these!"

"That, Potter, does not surprise me," Snape replied, flipping open a book with no title other than an infinity symbol on the front. "But when you are familiar with the concealment charms on the shelves intended for staff only, many things become possible." He offered a wry grin.

"That's cheating. Does Dumbledore know you end up teaching here? Or did you forget to tell him?" Harry felt he should be disapproving of this, but something in him was too impressed to care.

"I told him I was an academic. I made no mention of where I worked, although I think he suspects. Apparently not enough to secure the building though. No one's adjusted those charms in fifty years or more. Terribly sloppy work. If I were Headmaster, or even Head Librarian... but I am not, and so embarrassing security loopholes are left open." He indicated the books. "None of these are of the variety that will directly harm the reader. Take one and start looking."

Harry sat down and picked up one of the general Dark Arts primers. It might be useful to use against Voldemort if nothing else. "What are we looking for?"

"Anything on Tempus Reversit. Anything on Horcruxes. Anything on what happens to a Horcrux if you cast strong Dark magic at it. Anything on time travel, in particular reversing accidental time travel mishaps. Anything that might have any relevance to the current situation. For the love of god, Potter, you know as much about how we ended up here as I do. Pick a book and start looking."

Grumbling, Harry did as he was told. However, they'd not been there long when they were disturbed. Both Harry and Snape looked up with a start as someone else approached their table, Snape with his wand in his hand before he'd even registered who it was. He didn't look any less wary when he had though. On seeing who it was, he went very still, apparently horrified.

Harry, however, had relaxed completely. "Hi, Eileen," he said, grinning as much at Snape's discomfiture as he was at seeing her again. "Glad you could make it. Take a seat."

Eileen smiled gratefully, sitting down in between the two men. "Hello, Harry. How's the search going?"

"Badly. We've found absolutely bugger all."

"Potter!" Snape hissed, scandalised. "Kindly watch your tongue in front of my- er, in front of my housemates!"

"What's wrong, Snape?" said Harry, suppressing a laugh at Snape's unexpected prissiness. "I didn't know you were the chivalrous type."

"He must be the only man in Slytherin who is," said Eileen bitterly. "Severus Snape, I take it."

"He is," Harry confirmed. "Snape, this is Eileen Prince. I walked into her yesterday and we ended up talking. She seems intelligent and trustworthy, so I told her how we got here and she offered to help us search."

"You did what??" Snape spluttered. Jumping to his feet, he grabbed Harry by the arm.

"Excuse me, M... Miss Prince. I need to have a private word with my, er, colleague." Hauling Harry off behind a nearby shelf, he turned on him, furious.

"What in the name of all that's holy do you think you're doing??" he snarled. "Apart from letting other people in on our secret, which is foolhardy enough in itself, do you have any idea who she is??"

Harry decided to play it innocent. "She can't be any more dangerous than Tom Riddle, and he already knows. Besides, she knows what she's doing and she's a nice person. I like her. Why, what do you know about her? Is she a Death Eater or something?"

Snape shook his head, his face nearly grey, and Harry wondered if perhaps he hadn't gone too far. "The Dark Lord had her killed years ago for marrying a Muggle. I didn't even know until afterwards. It... it was why I changed sides." He let Harry go, clearly affected. Harry mentally smacked himself for being so bloody stupid. Why on earth hadn't he bothered to research Eileen's history after Hermione had first told him about her? He hadn't even bothered to find out if she was alive or dead. And now it turned out Voldemort had killed her, and Snape hadn't been able to do anything about it. No wonder he'd taken this so badly.

"Snape, I'm sorry..." he began. Snape shot him a glare and only just managed to cover the hurt inside.

"Shut up," Snape hissed. "Just shut up. You don't know a thing, you don't have a clue! You just..." He struggled to pull himself together. "You just never think, do you? About your actions, or the consequences of those actions or the feelings of anyone who isn't one of your housemates..."

"That's not..." Harry started to protest until Snape interrupted.

"Not what? Fair? You never for one moment stopped to think how I might feel seeing and working with a younger version of my mother. Is that fair?"

Harry didn't answer. He scowled faintly, but part of him was thinking Snape might have a point, and an even larger part of him was thinking of Eileen dying and simply reeling, knowing that a friend of his was already doomed, had died years in the future before he was even born and that returning home would mean he'd never see her again.

"No, it's not," he whispered, not wanting to think about Eileen meeting her death on the end of a Death Eater's wand but not being able to stop himself.

Snape blinked. He wasn't used to Harry actually admitting he was wrong. The beginnings of a smirk appeared on his face.

"Well, you have some empathy at least. I had wondered." He straightened up and prepared to return to the table. "Come on. I have to admit there are worse people you could have taken into your confidence. She is very intelligent and she does know what she's doing." He glanced over his shoulder, amused. "After all, she taught me everything I know." Sweeping away in a characteristic Snape mannerism, he rejoined Eileen, bowing formally before returning to his seat.

"Please accept my apologies, Miss Prince. I needed to have a private word with Mr. Potter. He tells me he has told you how we arrived?"

Eileen nodded, her brow furrowing. "Are you always this formal, Mr. Snape?"

"I do try. My mother was very assiduous in teaching me the importance of good manners." He allowed himself a sly grin.

"I wish more mothers did the same," said Eileen enviously. "It's a bloody rarity in Slytherin, let me tell you." She extended a hand to Snape. "But seeing as we're going to be working together, you can call me Eileen."

Snape took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Eileen then," he said, looking only a little uneasy at being on first name terms with his mother. "In that case, you may as well call me Severus."

"Severus," said Eileen, testing the syllables and deciding they sounded good. "I like it. My grandfather's called Severus."

"I know," said Snape softly. "I'm familiar with the Prince family," he added by way of explanation, after seeing the suspicion in Eileen's eyes.

"Really?" said Eileen, the tone of her voice indicating that this subject was not dead by any means. "We shall have to compare notes one of these days. We might even be related, who knows." She smiled knowingly at Snape, who could only laugh nervously. Eileen reached for Flux Incapacitors as if she'd said nothing untoward. "Shall we start studying then? We don't have all night."

And so the three of them hit the books. Harry's books of choice, while fascinating (when they weren't disturbing him) didn't really have much on time magic, so he spent much of the time observing Snape and Eileen instead. It was a little like watching Ron and Hermione, if Ron had had a near encyclopaedic knowledge of the Dark Arts. Snape had got over his initial discomfort and was now happily discussing the finer points of obscure magical theory with Eileen, arguments being flung back and forth at each other as one would come across something that might be relevant. It was actually rather entertaining to watch. Yes, Snape still came across as his usual sarcastic self, but he was a little less sharp with Eileen, and she was more than capable of giving as good as she got. It was more like a game than the warfare of the classroom he was used to, and this was a side of Snape he'd not seen before. Relaxed, as near to cheerful as Snape ever got, clearly enjoying himself. It was very disconcerting indeed to see Snape happy and no one else suffering. In fact, looking at Snape as he was now was very disconcerting and not just because of seeing him in a good mood. Snape was young again, and yet he did not at all talk, move or act like the boy from the Pensieve. He was moving and acting like Harry's teacher. It was unnerving. More than unnerving. Part of Harry found it rather attractive. It was as if young and older Snape had been flung together, mixed up and reformed into a new person, with traits of both but more than either had been. Snape had an energy he'd never had before, and the bitterness that had once been his hallmark seemed lighter somehow. He seemed confident, powerful, at ease, and yet the youthful features made him seem not imposing and threatening but - Harry shuddered to think it but there was no other word - cute. It was rather like watching a child playing dress-up with its parents' clothes, except this particular child's power was real. All in all, it was doing things to Harry. His cock was reacting very strongly, and Harry's mind was producing lurid fantasies involving pinning Snape to the desk and watching that mocking mouth contort as Harry fucked him again and again. No. Oh no. Not Snape. Anyone but Snape. With the sole exception of Tom Riddle, there was no one he wanted to fancy less than Snape. And yet his cock was straining in his pants and his hormones were racing and god help him, not only was Snape looking attractive, Harry was actually starting to like him. He'd caught himself sniggering at some of his remarks. He'd felt sorry for Snape on finding out how Eileen had died, even though it had been caused more by grief for Eileen than anything else. He remembered Snape baring his arm on two occasions, one with the Dark Mark, one without, both times declaring that he was on Dumbledore's side.

I think I even believe you.

Harry closed his eyes, wishing the explosion had killed them both outright rather than sending them here. This could only lead to trouble.

Fortunately, he was distracted from his thoughts by Eileen's cry of triumph.

"I think I found something!"

Snape was peering over her shoulder in an instant.

"What is it?"

Eileen pointed at the page in front of her. "Here. It's a few paragraphs on Tempus Reversit. Normally when cast on a person or object, it has a de-ageing effect – it reverses time for the target and they become young again. But they also lose their memory and any skills they've acquired, they literally become as they were however many years they've gone back – the number will depend on the strength of the wizard casting the spell. That's why it's not normally used as a means of restoring youth." Eileen looked rather pleased with herself for discovering this.

"That's why Hermione cast it," said Harry. "She wanted a means of making older and stronger enemies weaker so we could fight them." He gave Snape an apologetic nod before he could stop himself. Snape didn't seem to notice, being too busy frowning at the page.

"That would have reversed time for the Horcrux then," he said. "Maybe it would have released the Dark Lord's soul, or it would have ceased to be a Horcrux. Why did it explode and take us back in time?"

Eileen pointed to the next page. "Here. The de-ageing is what it normally does. But when cast at a potent magical object, such as the Horcrux of a powerful wizard - "

"Don't forget the original object was an extremely potent artefact in its own right – it was the crystal Harp of Ravenclaw," Snape added. Eileen's jaw nearly hit the table.

"What??" she gasped. "Oh Merlin, someone made a Horcrux out of that? My god, yes, that would do it, especially as it's crystal – that would only have enhanced the effects." She pointed at the text again. "It says here that if the target object is enchanted and powerful, it can warp time itself in the vicinity. And if you happen to be touching it or near it at the time, it can pull you in and send you back to the time and place when it was created." She closed the book, enlightenment dawning as all the pieces fitted together. "Like it must have done with you."

"But the Harp was made by Ravenclaw, that must have been a thousand years ago," Harry whispered. Snape rolled his eyes.

"Use your head, Potter," he said wearily. "The Harp was a thousand years old, but the Horcrux wasn't. The Dark Lord created his first Horcrux this year."

"But not with the Harp, surely?" said Harry. "The diary was his first Horcrux, then the ring, wasn't it? When did he do the Harp? The fifties? Sixties? Later?"

"1979 – I helped steal it," said Snape. "But that hardly matters – the point is, I think it's taken us back not to when that Horcrux was made, but back to when his soul was still intact. As it is right now." He said this last distantly, staring off into space. It was Eileen who broke the silence as the book fell from her hands and hit the table with a thump.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked. She looked very pale.

"No... I – of course not!" she snapped. "Someone is going to create a Horcrux here, at Hogwarts, this year, someone is going to have to die because of this, and you two are just sitting here casually talking about Dark Lords and Horcruxes as if it's completely normal!"

Harry looked rather guiltily at Snape, who was clearly thinking the same thing he had been – that for them, it was completely normal. But Eileen was only fifteen, and she was scared.

"Eileen, I'm sorry," said Harry softly, going to her and giving her a hug. "We didn't mean to upset you."

"Too late for that," Eileen whispered. "There's going to be a new Dark Lord rising, right here in Britain, and it starts here and now, and he'll make Horcruxes and people will die, and there's nothing any of us can do about it!" She stared up at Harry, panic-stricken. "How, how, can you two be so calm? And how on earth do you expect me to deal with this?"

Harry held her, clueless as to what to do. "Snape, there's got to be something we can do. We know who it is, can't we stop him somehow?"

Snape was standing behind his chair, knuckles white as he gripped the back of it.

"You know as well as I do that we can't do that," he said through gritted teeth. "Who knows what sort of chaos we might cause? We might make things a good deal worse. Do you want the fabric of space and time ripped apart? Because I don't!" Hesitantly, he approached Eileen, squeezing her shoulder as if afraid to do anything more. "Eileen, if it bothers you... if it upsets you this much... I could Obliviate you, if you wish."

"Snape!" Harry cried, at the same time as Eileen vehemently said "No!" Snape immediately backed off.

"No," Eileen repeated, calming down a little as she reached out to Snape to reassure him. He was looking more than a little hurt and afraid, but he calmed down when he saw that Eileen, while still a little shaken, did not appear angry at either of them.

"No, I'll keep the memories," she said firmly. "I need to be ready when the time comes. But there is something you can do, both of you."

"What is it?" Harry asked. "We'll do anything." He looked at Snape, who nodded in agreement. Eileen took both their hands in hers.

"Fight him," she said simply. "Find his Horcruxes, destroy them, do what you have to do. But promise me you will stand against him. Promise me!"

Harry smiled, relieved. "I promise. It's what I do anyway." He glanced at Snape, who had gone very still. Then, to Harry's surprise, he nodded and put his arm around her.

"Very well. I promise. When Potter and I return to our own time, we'll destroy his remaining Horcruxes and put an end to it. I promise you that, Eileen." His voice shook a little as he said her name, but his eyes remained steady, and once more Harry found himself reassessing his view of Snape. Good god, Snape's actually got a heart and principles. Who'd have thought it? Not him, that was certain. Thoughts of pushing Snape up against the wall and ravaging him right there began to make their presence felt again, and Harry's cock twitched into life, practically begging for his attention. Making his excuses, Harry decided it was time they called it a night.

Snape and Eileen made their way back to Slytherin in silence for the most part. But Eileen was looking at him rather strangely and there was a limit to how much of that Snape could take.

"What?" he demanded as soon as they entered the relative safety of the dungeons. "You're staring at me. It's unnerving me. Stop it."

"Did you mean it back in the library?" she said, watching him closely in the way that she always had when she suspected him of having misbehaved and wanted the truth out of him. It had always worked then too.

"Mean what?" Quibbling over the exact meaning of what she was asking was Snape's usual response to his mother's interrogations. It had never worked then either.

"You know perfectly well what I mean," she said sternly. "The promise you made. That you'd fight the Dark Lord when you got home."

"Oh. That. Of course I meant it," said Snape irritably. The constant questioning of his loyalties was beginning to get to him. "It's what I was doing anyway. What do you think I was doing there? I was seeking out the one Horcrux I was fairly certain I knew the location of and trying to destroy it. Then Potter and his friends turned up and thought I was there to protect it. Hence the duel, and Granger casting the infernal hex that got us into this trouble."

"So you were working for him then," said Eileen softly. "Harry recognised you as one of the Dark Lord's followers, didn't he?"

Snape bowed his head. He never had been any good at lying to his mother. "At one time, yes, I was a willing Death Eater. Yes, I helped steal the Harp so he could make it into a Horcrux. I knew what he wanted it for – I was his willing servant at that time. I was his pet Sensitarius – he took me quite deeply into his confidence. At the time I believe I'd deluded myself into thinking he loved me."

Eileen made a noise of sympathy, reaching out to touch his arm. Snape closed his eyes, fighting the memories.

"And then?" said Eileen softly. "What did he do to make you turn?"

"He said as I'd been so useful in acquiring it for him he wanted to make it special for me, wanted to make it into a Horcrux in memory of me." Snape did look at her then, staring straight into eyes as dark as his own, eyes that couldn't help but bring the memories flooding back. "He killed my parents and used my mother's death to make it. He didn't even tell me until afterwards, he showed me the memory in a Pensieve. And that's why I turned. Are you happy now? Did that answer your question?" Without waiting for an answer, he strode off, not wanting the living reminder in front of him for a single second longer. He heard her calling his name, calling for him to wait, to come back and talk to her, but he ignored her. He was feeling emotional enough as it was, if he stayed he knew he wouldn't be able to avoid telling her everything, who he really was, who she really was, how sorry he was, how he'd missed her, everything he'd wanted to tell her before but couldn't.

But she wasn't his mother. She was just a fifteen year old girl, and she didn't need to deal with all that. So Snape ran into the dungeons, easily outdistancing her, darting down a passageway he didn't think anyone else knew about, eager to find a sanctuary where he could hide and recover.

He didn't find it.

Before he even knew someone else was there, they had stepped out of the darkness and grabbed hold of him, one hand over his mouth and the other going for his wand hand. Magic that wasn't his seared out of the darkness, wrapping itself around him, disarming him far more thoroughly than his assailant's hands had. Snape felt his knees buckle under the onslaught of it, and he couldn't stop himself moaning. Chuckling, Tom Riddle adjusted his grip, turning it into a dreadful parody of a lover's embrace.

"Well, well, well," he murmured, stroking Snape's cheek. "My little Sensitarius has finally decided to come home to his master."

You're not my master, Snape wanted to scream at him. But his limbs had turned to jelly, and his throat seemed to have dried up, because all he could do was melt into Tom's arms as if he belonged there. Maybe he did, who knew. After all, didn't it feel so natural? Didn't it feel like it had done when he was seventeen for the first time, with the Dark Lord promising power, wealth, status, revenge, protection, if he only gave up everything and surrendered his will to him? Part of him screamed that it had been a lie then, it was a lie now, don't give in. But the rest of him had missed this, yearned for this, been torn apart leaving and deceiving.

"Where have you been, my pet?" Tom whispered, pulling Snape close, letting him feel his erection against his thigh. "Don't you know I've been waiting for you? Hmm?"

"I was in the library," Snape gasped. "Studying... ahh!" Tom had grabbed him by the hair, spun him around and shoved him up against a wall.

"You were not studying," said Tom softly. "You were with the Potter brat and young Prince. You were researching, weren't you? You're looking for a way back, aren't you?" He leaned in closer, lips inches from Snape's ear. "You want to leave me, don't you. You're trying to get away from me."

Answering yes was a good way to die, Snape was sure of that. Besides, the magic was too overwhelming to resist.

"N-no," he whispered, strengthening his Occlumency. Go along with it, do what he wants, stay alive, do what you must to get through this. It was how he'd survived in the past, after all.

"Liar," Tom snarled. He grabbed Snape again and spun him around so he was facing the wall. "I think you need to know your place, Severus. I think you need to know who you really belong to. You need to know who your master is." He flicked his wand, murmured a spell, and Snape found himself naked from the waist down, with his arse feeling damp.

No. No, he wouldn't... Of course he would. This was Tom Riddle, and had his older incarnation not done or threatened to do similar things if he suspected his followers were straying?

"You're mine, Severus," Tom hissed as he fiddled with his trousers, before pulling Snape's buttocks apart. "Do you hear me? Mine!"

Snape couldn't stop himself from crying out as Tom entered him in one stroke, forcing himself in, thrusting in and out in a maddeningly slow rhythm.

"No," Snape whispered. "No, oh no, oh... don't stop..." he moaned. He could barely see, barely breathe because of the intoxicating magic enveloping him. His cock was hard and weeping as Tom thrust into him, and oh god, hadn't he missed this? Hadn't he missed the feeling of being the most important thing in the world to someone? Hadn't he missed the feeling of being wanted? Hadn't he missed having Tom's cock in his arse? Despite everything, no one had ever made him feel like this before or since. He hated Tom Riddle with all his heart and soul. He hated himself for backing into him, opening his arse up and letting him fuck him raw. I hate you, Tom. Don't stop.

"You belong to me, understand?" Tom snarled. "You're mine, and I'm going to use you however I want, whenever I want. If I want to fuck your arse, I'm going to. If I want your mouth on my cock, you're going to put it there. If I want to make you come, you're going to come. If I want you, you're going to be at my side, bending over, letting me give it to you. You're going to take it and you're going to love it. Aren't you, my – little – Sensi – tari – us?" He punctuated his words with thrusts into Snape, who wriggled at the thought of it, feeling Tom's cock and his magic penetrating him at the same time on different levels.

"Yes," he moaned, throwing his head back and clenching his buttocks around Tom's cock. "Yes, oh yes, please, yes, I'm yours, all yours, oh god..."

"Yesss..." Tom hissed. "Mine, all mine, going to make you mine, going to claim you!" He thrust harder and harder into Snape, speeding up, and Snape could tell Tom couldn't be far off coming.

"Come for me, my pet," Tom whispered in Snape's ear. "Come for me, Severus. Give it up to me. Tell me whose you are!"

"I'm yours!" Snape cried. "Yours... all yours... master..." His cock was so achingly hard, he was so close to coming, he'd say anything, absolutely anything, as long as Tom didn't stop. So lost was he to everything that he barely noticed Tom grabbing his left arm and rolling the sleeve down.

"Going to make sure you remember that, pet," Tom breathed, pinning Snape's left wrist to the wall as he produced his wand and held the tip to his forearm. Suddenly Snape realised what he was going to do.

Nononono, not again, not my second chance, I don't want to be your slave again, I won't! But his body was too busy thrusting against Tom's cock, and his magic was too busy lying back and letting Riddle's power play it. Even as his mind screamed in protest, his body only trembled in anticipation. When Tom's magic flared and he whispered "Morsmordre!" and pain seared through him, all Snape could do was fall back into Tom's arms and come, screaming as he ejaculated, riding high in ecstasy. Tom clung on to him as he reached his own orgasm, laughing as he did so. Finally he was finished. Letting Snape go, he withdrew, rearranging his clothes as he watched Snape slide to the floor, staring at the brand new Dark Mark on his forearm.

"A little reminder, my pet," said Tom softly, dropping to his knees and pulling Snape into his arms. Sometimes, afterwards, he could almost be tender. Snape had forgotten that. Once though, he would have leaned back into the monster's embrace and believed, or at least tried to believe, he was loved. Not any more. All he felt now was horror and fury, at the short-lived new leaf that was already blotted, and at himself for giving in again and letting pleasure overwhelm his rational self. Fortunately, Occlumency kept these heretical thoughts hidden, and Tom kept stroking Snape's hair, smiling.

"You need to remember whose you are, beloved," said Tom. "So I've marked you, so you don't forget. So that whenever you see that mark, you'll remember you're mine. It also has more practical uses – I can use it to summon you when I have need of you."

Snape did not let on that he knew that particular function all too well. Tom summoned Snape's clothes and passed them to him.

"Get dressed, pet. It's time to go back." Tom got up and stood there, waiting while Snape dressed himself, before making him walk in front all the way back to the common room. Snape said nothing. He felt numb inside, unwilling to let himself feel anything lest fury and grief at allowing himself to be enslaved again overwhelm him. He did not know what he was going to do, but one thing he did know. He would be revenged on Riddle for this.

However, it wasn't revenge on Riddle that he had to worry about. It was dealing with Eileen and Harry.

Eileen had been waiting in the common room, and had immediately made a move in his direction when she'd seen him come in – until she'd seen Tom Riddle enter behind him. She'd swiftly backed off and returned to the corner table she'd been sitting at, but her eyes hardly left Snape all night. He'd not been able to go to her – Tom had made him stay by his side all evening – but even if he had, he didn't think he'd have been able to. He didn't think he could handle the shame of admitting what had happened.

He might even have got away with it if Eileen Prince and Harry Potter hadn't been the most irritating, stubborn, persistent individuals he'd ever had the misfortune to come across.

He spent most of the next day at Tom's side, blanking both Eileen and Harry when they'd tried to talk to him. Eileen had backed off at the merest glance from Tom, but Potter had been stubbornly insistent.

"Snape," Harry had called, elbowing his way through the crowd of students to get to where Snape was following Tom. "Snape, I need to talk to you!"

"Potter, go away," said Snape, staring at the ground, pointedly not looking at him. "I don't have time for this." He shot a glance at Tom, who had turned to see what was going on and had fixed Harry with a furious glare. For god's sake, Potter, have you no sense of self-preservation? Run, you fool!

Of course, Harry stayed right where he was. Snape should have known that the idiot Gryffindor would stay put even in the face of an angry Tom Riddle, when anyone sane would have been running.

What, like you did? his inner voice mocked. Snape tried his best to ignore it even as the sudden presence of Tom's seething magical aura sent shivers down his spine.

"Tough," said Harry. "You've been avoiding us and following Tom Riddle around all day, and I want to know why!"

"Potter," Snape whispered, hating himself in that instant more than he ever had before. "Leave, leave now, you don't know..." Then Tom was there and Snape could say no more.

"I would have thought the reason for that was obvious," said Tom, malice and hate glittering in his eyes. "Why on earth would he want to be with nobodies like you when he could be with me?" He put an arm around Snape's shoulders in a gesture that would have looked affectionate to anyone who didn't know any better. He gave Harry a smug smile that went no deeper than his lips, and Snape trembled at Tom's touch. He had a feeling that Tom would want to punish him as soon as he got him back to Slytherin, and he knew it would be bad.

"Come, my pet," Tom murmured. "Let's get you away from corrupting influences." He started to lead Snape away. Snape made to go with him, but one small part of him was still in rebellion – the part that wanted revenge. He hated having to do this – hated having to rely on Potter, of all people, for assistance. But then again, Potter did have a knack of surviving encounters with Voldemort that would have killed anyone else. Who else could Snape turn to? Besides, he hated Tom Riddle far more than he could ever have hated Potter. He shot one last glance at Potter and met his eyes, eyes filled with anger, hate... and betrayal? He didn't have time to ponder this, however. All he could do was summon all his Legilimency and fling one desperate thought at him.

Help me.

Harry's eyes widened as he felt the power hit him, as he heard Snape's voice whisper the words in his ear. It wasn't even the words themselves, it was the desperation in them. He had seen Snape do many things, but begging wasn't one of them. Snape was far too proud to ever do such a thing. And yet the wild look in Snape's eyes, the sheer panic in the Legilimency voice seemed to make it look as if he was doing just that, and begging Harry for help no less.

Harry hesitated, remembering all his history with Snape. Snape, who had always hated him, Snape who had always picked on him, Snape who had never failed to be hateful, petty and malicious towards him. Snape who had killed Dumbledore.

Snape who had left Voldemort, turned spy, and gone as far as to show his Mark to the Minister of Magic in a vain attempt to convince the stubborn old fool that the entire British Wizarding World was under attack. Snape who had saved his life time and again, despite hating him. Snape, who despite killing Dumbledore, had not killed him or even hurt him, but told other Death Eaters to leave him alone. Snape who only yesterday had shown him a bare forearm and proudly declared he was not the Dark Lord's creature. Snape who in the library had seemed like the most beautiful thing in the world, all awkward innocence and fierce power combined with a sharp mind and even sharper tongue. Snape who in the space of one day had gone from proud young wizard to this broken, submissive creature, enslaved to a psychopath and reduced to begging for the help of a wizard he hated.

It was the last thought that decided Harry, that and the terror in Snape's eyes. No matter what Snape had done, who he was, Harry couldn't let Tom do that to another human being. He raised his wand to strike.

Unfortunately for Harry, Tom's sense of imminent danger was working just fine, and he spun round, flinging a curse back at Harry at exactly the same moment Harry's Stunning Charm left his wand.

Unfortunately for Tom, Harry had forgotten and Tom had never known what had happened last time they'd duelled. Harry's spell hit Tom's head on, and the two locked together just as they had in the graveyard. Harry, despite barely being able to hang on to his wand as the magic surged through it, couldn't help but grin, particularly at the shocked look on Tom's face. Didn't expect that, did you, you bastard?

Snape watched, literally spellbound. He'd heard about the Priori Incantatem effect that resulted when Harry and Voldemort's wands clashed, of course, but he'd never seen it in action before. It was fascinating to behold. He could feel the magic emanating off both of them, and Merlin, it was strong. Tom's magic was brooding and dark, rising off him like steam as Tom tried to control his wand, while Harry's magic was like fire, blazing out of him in righteous fury. It was intoxicating, truly intoxicating. Where Tom had always made him tremble in fear, a slave to his own emotions, Harry's magic was having a different, although no less potent effect. It was making him feel alive, making him feel strong, making him feel like his old self, except better than that. It made him want to run with it, dance with it, feel it lifting him up. Where Tom's magic would have him on his knees, Harry's made him want to fly. He wanted to hate the brat for having this effect on him. He wanted to kiss the boy for showing him the way out. While he'd always felt Harry's magic, he'd never seen it fully unfolded before, just felt it as a potential, a strange and alien force that would drag him out of himself, force him to change just by being around it. He'd always hated and resisted it before. Now, though, he found himself welcoming it. Damn you, Potter. What have you turned me into? He didn't know, but it had to be better than being the Dark Lord's pet. But first, there was the duel to be won. One of them had to force the other's magic back into his wand.

In the end, there was no contest. Harry as an inexperienced fourteen year old had managed to beat a newly-resurrected Voldemort with years of practical Dark Arts behind him. Harry as a more experienced seventeen year old who had won a Priori Incantatem duel before up against a younger Tom Riddle who'd never fought one could hardly lose. With a scream of triumph, Harry forced the magic back into Tom's wand. Tom could only howl in pain as all the spells he'd cast in lessons that day began to start emerging from his wand. Snape froze as they began to hover around Tom, seemingly taunting him. He'd not cast that much magic today, and any minute now the Dark Mark spell from last night would emerge, shaming him in front of half the school. This battle was happening in the Entrance Hall of all places, and a crowd had gathered, staring in shock at the spectacle before them. Worse, Dumbledore had just entered the room and was watching the scene looking absolutely transfixed. That, however, couldn't last. In desperation, Snape sought his mother out. She was standing on the stairs, looking ready to bolt at any moment. He locked eyes with her, and using the Legilimency she'd taught him all those years ago, he sent her a message.

Get us out of here.

Eileen nodded once, and concentrated. He heard her voice whispering in his ear, and from the sudden surprise on Harry's face, could only surmise she had sent the same message to him.

I am about to cause a distraction. When it happens, run. She then flashed an image of where she wanted them to escape to. It was the top of the Astronomy Tower. Snape could only shake his head at the irony. Did some things never change? He sent back his assent and fingered his wand, preparing to run at any minute. Eileen lifted her wand and drew it in a complicated design, casting a non-verbal spell. A cloud appeared in the middle of the room just as a ghostly Dark Mark began to emerge from Tom's wand, rapidly growing and expanding to fill the entire room with a clinging mist that rendered visibility virtually non-existent, except where the magic of Priori Incantatem was still glowing. Screams broke out all over the room as students frantically began making for the exits, crashing into each other and falling in the confusion. Snape, however, had practised too much night fighting with the Death Eaters to be easily fazed, and he knew the Entrance Hall layout well enough to navigate it with his eyes shut. Letting his Sensitarius instincts guide him to Harry, he grabbed him by the arm and whispered "Come on! Eileen's waiting." Harry broke off the magic and followed, stumbling after Snape as he forced a way through the crowds and made for the stairs. The mist was thinner here, and Eileen was able to recognise them as they staggered out of it. She took Harry's other arm and the three of them raced off, not caring where they went, as long as it got them far, far away.

Shaken, Tom staggered away, drained from the effort. Beaten by a Gryffindor, and his Sensitarius deserting him? Such a thing was not to be tolerated. But there was little point in chasing after them, not in this fog, and not with Dumbledore around. Best to retreat and find out just what had happened. He could track Snape through the Dark Mark anyway. Snarling, he headed towards the Slytherin dungeons. He had plans to make.

"He won't," he heard Eileen whisper. He realised he'd spoken out loud, or whispered at least, and mentally cursed himself for the slip. He hadn't wanted Eileen of all people to hear that. But it was too late now. She was kneeling by his side, arms around him.

"He won't kill you; I won't let him!" she whispered savagely. Snape heard the fury in her voice and suppressed tears with difficulty. He'd never seen her this emotional when she was alive, never this protective.

"And what are you going to do if he tries?" he said, his tone sharper than he'd really intended. "You're fifteen."

"Aye, and he's only sixteen and I know the Dark Arts too," she said, hate making her fierce. "I could kill him, Severus. I know I could. I certainly hate him enough."

Snape did embrace her then, remembering her as he'd known her growing up, all cool determination and self-control, and comparing her to this passionate young teenager. Two sides of the same coin, so very very like himself, and he realised just how much he'd missed her.

"He's not worth becoming a murderer for," he told her.

"And Dumbledore was?" Harry's voice cut across the room. Both Snape and Eileen looked up at this. Harry had been sitting on the edge of the parapet, but now he was striding over, wand out and pointing it at Snape, his eyes emotionless. Snape felt his heart sink as he realised that his dream of Potter's magic rescuing him from the Dark Lord and making him live happily ever after was destined to stay just that – a dream. There was little hope of redemption in those eyes, and Harry's magic was unfurling around him like the wings of an avenging angel.

"Harry?" Eileen said, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Him," said Harry, indicating Snape. "He's a Death Eater. One of Voldemort's followers. He killed Dumbledore in our time, after pretending to be a spy for him and gaining his trust. But he was really working for Voldemort all along. It's always been Voldemort for you, hasn't it? Does it for you, does he? Set your Sensitarius pulse trembling, does he? One taste of his magic and you can't resist, can you? Even when you get a second chance, the first minute you get, you're on your knees, crawling back to him, begging for him to take you back, baring your wrist for the Dark Mark and your arse for..." He didn't have the opportunity to finish the sentence. Snape had broken free from Eileen's grasp, staggered to his feet and launched himself at Harry, who had been too busy taunting him to react.

"Shut up!" Snape screamed, grabbing Harry by the shoulders and shoving him back up against one of the pillars holding the roof up. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" He struck at Harry's shoulder with each cry, but the blows weren't that strong and as emotion overcame him, they grew even weaker as the tears started to come in earnest. Anger at Tom for claiming him again after he thought he'd escaped, grief for Eileen, both the teenage girl who'd be changed utterly by the time she became a mother and for the mother he'd lost, unshed tears for Dumbledore, regrets over all the wasted years, but most of all a chilling combination of anger and misery caused by Harry bloody Potter, whose magic had always stirred something in him even at eleven but had matured into something that made him feel more alive than he'd felt in years. And Harry hated him, didn't understand him, would never understand, would certainly never want him.

"Shut up... shut up..." Snape whispered, sinking to his knees, broken at last. "You don't understand, Potter, you never did understand, you never will..." He put a hand to his face, hiding the tears that were starting to flow freely.

"Get away from me," Harry hissed, pushing Snape to the floor and pointing his wand at Snape's head. Snape, no longer caring what happened to him, didn't even bother defending himself, merely raising his left arm to shield his face from Harry's gaze. Harry, still furious despite, or perhaps because of, seeing Snape pushed to his limits, ripped the sleeve away to reveal the Dark Mark freshly emblazoned on his skin.

"I knew it," he breathed. "Death Eater!" He raised his wand to strike. "Avada Ke-"

"NO!" Eileen screamed, throwing herself at Harry and grabbing his wand arm. "No, oh god no, Harry, please don't kill him." She stared into his eyes, pleading. "Don't kill my son."

Harry lowered his wand, staring at her. "You... know?" he said, stunned. He shot a glare at Snape. As if his other crimes weren't bad enough, he had to go telling Eileen who he was? But from the look in his eyes, it seemed Snape hadn't realised she'd known either.

"Of course I know," said Eileen bitterly. "I know the Prince family tree off by heart. None of us ever married into a family called Snape. It's not even a pureblood line. And yet look at him, he's so like me. Occlumency, Potions, the Dark Arts, the way he looks. He's even a Sensitarius, and that's not a common gift. And he's called Severus. After my favourite grandfather, who taught me Occlumency, taught me about being Sensitaria and how to live with it and protect myself from those who might take advantage. I've always said to myself that if I ever had a son I'd call him Severus." She broke away from Harry, kneeling by Snape's side. "And here you are," she whispered. "My beautiful, intelligent son." She stroked his cheek, smiling sadly at him.

"I'm nothing of the sort," Snape said harshly. "I'm barely worthy of the name. I got you killed, for god's sake. God, how can you bear to be near me?"

"Because I know what it's like," said Eileen. "Riddle's very charming when he wants to be, isn't he? He's very good at making you feel special. Very good at finding your weaknesses. And that magic is near irresistible. When you've spent most of your life being looked down on because you're ugly, because you're poor, because you don't have the prestigious bloodlines the rest of Slytherin do, oh he's very good at taking advantage of that, isn't he? He's excellent at making you feel that that doesn't matter. Until he's got what he wants, of course." Eileen smoothed Snape's hair back. "He's your Dark Lord, isn't he? Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort. I've heard Avery, Lestrange and Malfoy call him that. I recognised the name when Harry first told me it. It was a shock, I admit. Even more of a shock to find out that he used my death to make the Horcrux that sent you here."

"He... what?" Harry cried, incredulously staring at Snape. "You knew that and you still went back to him?"

"Shut up, Potter, you don't know what you're talking about," Snape snapped viciously at him. Eileen hushed him.

"Severus, don't. It's not helping," she said. Snape had the decency to look slightly abashed. Eileen gently lifted his face up so he was looking right at her. The tenderness in her eyes nearly undid him right there. Oh mother, don't. I've failed you, let you down so badly. How you can know all this and still bear to look at me, never mind call me son...

"Tell us both why you joined the Death Eaters," Eileen said.

"Mother," Snape whispered.

"Tell us, Severus," said Eileen firmly. There was no arguing with that voice, as Snape knew all too well.

"The magic," Snape sighed. "It was so strong. I could barely resist it. He promised me everything. He promised me power, promised me status, promised me revenge. He called me his pet, his beloved. I thought he cared for me. I was so used to being looked down on by everyone, I jumped at the chance. And then he killed my parents to make a Horcrux." Eileen shivered as he said this. Snape continued, determined to finish. "I knew better after that. I knew he was insane then. My mother taught me everything I knew, how he thought I could stay loyal after he killed her..." He shook his head. "When Dumbledore's brother caught me eavesdropping on a private conversation Albus was having, I seized the opportunity and offered my services to his side. Dumbledore's magic was strong enough to fight the hold the Dark Lord had on me. I've been loyal to him ever since. I still am, Potter. Believe me or not, as you will."

"And you killed him," said Harry, still refusing to concede an inch.

"I had no choice," said Snape wearily. "I'd made a vow to Narcissa to protect Draco and carry out his quest if he failed. I had to keep it or die myself. Much good it did me – the foolish brat got himself killed by Aurors days before we got sent back in time. That was why I went after the Ravenclaw Harp when I did. I had to do something to atone, somehow. If I got rid of that Horcrux, it would go some way to making up for it all. So I hoped, anyway."

"And then Tempus Reversit got rid of your Mark," said Harry scornfully. "But two days later, and you've got another one to replace it."

Snape didn't say a word. He just closed his eyes and rested his head on Eileen's shoulder. Eileen held him tightly.

"But did you really want to, Severus?" she asked. "Did you go back to him, did you take his Mark entirely of your own free will? Or was it the magic overwhelming you?"

Snape didn't answer. He just tightened his grip on Eileen.

"He did it to you too, didn't he?" she whispered. "Swept you off your feet, made it impossible for you to say no, took what he wanted without caring what you thought and made you enjoy it anyway?"

"Yes," Snape whispered, not looking up. He could feel the tears welling up, but was determined not to give Harry the satisfaction of seeing them.

"I know," Eileen whispered. "I know. He did it to me too. Oh my boy, my poor boy." She held him, but all the while her eyes rested on Harry, who was still aiming his wand at Snape. He met Eileen's gaze and saw the defiance in her eyes. She would not be backing down over this, he could see that. He could also see his former Potions Master's sobbing form in her arms, and something in him cracked. He remembered the man-turned-boy from the day before, defiantly proclaiming his freedom, and compared him to the wreck he saw before him now, and he felt his hatred of Tom Riddle intensify. Snape's an utter bastard, but not even he deserves what Tom's done to him. Not to mention the fact that there was a worryingly large part of him that had liked seeing Snape free and happy and wanted that Snape back quite badly. He knew in that moment that he simply couldn't bring himself to feel the hatred needed to fuel the Killing Curse.

Slowly, he lowered his wand.

"I have just one question," Harry said softly. "Snape – Severus. When you killed Dumbledore – how did you gather the hate you needed to cast it?"

Snape finally lifted his head, eyes meeting Harry's. His face was like a mask, but not even Occlumency could disguise the tear stains that were still there.

"I believe I hated the stubborn old bastard for giving me a choice and a chance," he replied. "For giving me something to live up to. For making me be better than I had been. And for not noticing that I couldn't be the wizard he wanted me to be. But most of all, I hated myself. Is that the answer you wanted, Potter?" Broken as he was, there was always the energy to sneer at Harry. For some reason, Harry found this comforting.

"It'll do," Harry heard himself say. He was as surprised as anyone to realise he actually believed it... but believe it he did. He's a victim too. He put his wand back in his pocket. "So what now? The whole school's going to want to know what that was about. And you'd better believe Dumbledore's going to be asking questions. It was his phoenix that donated my and Riddle's wand cores. And I don't think it'll be safe for you to go back to Slytherin after this. Riddle's going to be out for blood." Quite probably literally, as Snape and Harry were both well aware.

"Then maybe I should leave Hogwarts and go elsewhere," Snape began to say, before stopping. He'd gone very still.

"Snape?" Harry asked, feeling his throat go dry. "What's the matter?"

"The wards I cast on the stairs," Snape said, reaching for his wand. "They've broken. Someone's coming – agghhh!" He clutched at his Dark Mark, reeling in agony, and Harry needed no further warning to know just who was coming up the stairs.

"Severus?" Eileen gasped. "Severus, are you all right?" Harry grabbed her and pulled her away, pushing her towards the edge of the tower.

"Stay out of the way, don't make a sound and whatever you do, don't use any magic, it'll break the spell." Feeling a strange sense of deja vu, he cast a swift Disillusionment Charm on her before she could object. He and Snape were used to dealing with an angry Voldemort. She wasn't. Gripping his wand, he waited for Tom to enter.

As soon as the other boy's head emerged, Harry flung a Stunning Charm at him. To his dismay, Tom deflected it with ease, before hitting back with a Disarming Charm that had both his and Snape's wands flying into the far corner. Tom Summoned them, smiling coldly at Harry as he pocketed them.

"Not as useful as my own wand," Tom purred, toying with the wand he carried, which Harry realised too late was not the one he'd been carrying earlier. "But it's handy enough. Remind me to give it back to Abraxas later." He raised an eyebrow at Harry's shocked look. "Come now, do you think Slytherin House is composed of fools? Once I'd described what had happened and mentioned that it forced the spells I'd cast out of my wand, it didn't take long for someone to think of the Priori Incantatem spell, and then Medea Avery remembered that if two wands had the same core, they had that effect when used against each other. It was a simple enough matter to trade wands with my housemates until I discovered one that worked with my magic." He stepped closer, reminding Harry of Crookshanks closing in on Scabbers. "So you're Harry Potter. I don't believe we've really had the chance to talk before."

Harry snorted, glaring furiously at Tom. The other boy folded his arms, amused.

"Or maybe we have. Who knows where our paths might lead in the future, after all? Oh yes, I know about that. I eavesdropped when you first arrived, and my little pet here," he indicated Snape, who was still lying on the floor, writhing in pain, "confirmed you came from 1996 and everyone knows who I am." He reached out with the tip of his wand and brushed Harry's hair aside to reveal the scar. Harry recoiled at the touch.

"Interesting," Tom murmured. "A curse scar, is it not? How did you get it? What curse? And who cast it and why? Forgive me, I'm curious about these things."

Harry gazed at Tom, loathing him more than he'd thought possible. Maybe there was a way out of here. He didn't hold out much hope of Snape helping him, and he certainly didn't want Eileen getting involved. And yet without his wand there wasn't much he could do. However, he could certainly hit Tom where it hurt.

"You gave it to me," said Harry. "You tried to kill me when I was just a baby, but the Killing Curse just bounced off and hit you instead."

Tom froze. "You lie," he snarled. "No one can survive that curse! No one!"

Harry laughed. "I did. And I survived all the other times you tried to kill me as well. You keep trying to do that, you know. You're the most hated and feared Dark wizard of our time, the all-powerful and invulnerable Dark Lord, but every time you try and kill me, it always goes wrong. All that power and you can't even kill one teenage boy!"

Tom had gone white as he heard this, his nostrils flaring. As Harry laughed in his face, Tom's control snapped.

"Can't kill you?" he whispered. "Let's see!" Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small black book that Harry recognised with a shock as the diary that he'd destroyed in his second year, Tom Riddle's first Horcrux. Except here it was still intact and not yet a Horcrux. Harry had a horrible feeling that Tom didn't intend for it to stay that way for long, and his suspicions were confirmed as Tom lifted his wand, pointing it right at Harry's scar.

"I've been studying this for a while, researching how to make one of these," said Tom softly. "Horcruxes, Harry, do you know what they are?"

"Yeah," Harry snapped back, fighting the overwhelming feeling of panic at the back of his mind. "I've already destroyed two."

"Have you now?" said Tom idly. "How fitting that a Destroyer of Horcruxes should meet his end in the making of one. I cannot live while you survive, my adversary. You know far too much about me. My apologies; you have real power, it will be a pity to waste it. Alas, I have no choice." His eyes hardened. "Besides, you appear to have stolen my Sensitarius. Severus is mine, mine, and he always will be. Avada Ke-"

"Leave him alone!" Somehow, Snape had overcome the pain in his Mark and dragged himself to his feet. Before Tom could finish the curse, Snape had flung himself at Tom, grabbing his robes and hauling him to the ground.

"You- how dare you?" Tom cried, struggling to throw Snape off him and get a good aim with his wand. "You're mine, damn you! You dare to strike me, your master?"

"You're not my master," Snape growled. "You're just a cocky little half-blood with ideas above his station and a misplaced god complex. And you're not going to win this time, Riddle."

"My name is Lord Voldemort!" Tom roared, shoving Snape away. "And you're going to die and die in pain, you treacherous Sensitarius whore!" He grabbed Snape by the arm and planted a thumb against his Mark. Snape screamed, his arm feeling like it was on fire. Tom knelt next to him, watching him thrash in agony, looking enraptured at the sight.

"Yes," he hissed. "Yes, scream for me, Severus. Remember whose you are! Scream loud enough, I might even keep you alive. Call me master again, and you may yet be forgiven."

"N-never," Snape managed to cry out. Tom pressed harder, and the pain intensified. Snape screamed even more, arching his back in a grotesque parody of orgasm.

"Call... out... my... name!" Tom cried, frustratedly jabbing at the Mark with each word. Snape gritted his teeth, opening his eyes to see Harry staring at him over Tom's shoulder. He was watching in horror, and Snape could practically feel Harry's magic unfurling as his anger at Tom started to rise. He'd never seen anything so beautiful in his life, and suddenly he realised why Harry was the Chosen One. He believed suddenly, as he'd never believed anything else before, that Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, was vulnerable and that Harry Potter was the one to bring him down. And I will be there when it happens, and I will help you do it; you are stronger than he is, better than he is, you can save me from him and I choose to follow you!

"Harry," he gasped, eyes never leaving Harry's. "Harry!"

Tom's magic raged around him, crashing down around Snape like a tidal wave. It barely registered. Snape laughed, despite the pain. Tom couldn't touch him any more. Inside at least, he was free.

Tom by this time had recovered his wand, and he twisted around, the full force of his rage turning on Harry.

"I will kill him here and now," he seethed. "I will make Severus scream until his body can handle it no more and his bones burst out of his chest. I'm going to force myself into him, take him over and over again until there's nothing left of his arse to fuck. And you, Potter, you're going to stand there and watch! Petrificus Totalus!" The curse hit Harry before he could move, freezing him in place, unable to do anything or even look away. Tom returned his attention to Snape, madness in his eyes as his charming front gave way to the monster within.

"And now, my pet, you're going to learn just who your master is." He raised his wand. Snape closed his eyes. Harry couldn't help him. He was doomed and he knew it. All he could do was hope the end came swiftly, but he wasn't optimistic. Tom's wand touched his Mark, and the pain began again. Snape couldn't even hear his own screams. This was it then. Pain unimaginable until the end came at last.

It came sooner than he thought.

"Avada Kedavra!" Snape felt the rush of magic and displaced air, the green light penetrating his eyelids, and the pain erupted in his arm in one rush before stopping very suddenly. Snape collapsed to the floor. If this was death, it wasn't as peaceful as he'd imagined. For a start, he was aching all over and he was gasping for breath. He opened his eyes to see the Astronomy Tower's roof above him.

I'm not dead. So who had cast the curse then? Who had died? He sat up, wincing at the pain in his back and arms, looking desperately for Harry.

He was alive, if shaken. He was clinging to the parapet, evidently free of the Body-Bind Tom had cast... and he was staring, not at Snape but at his side. Snape turned to see what had caught Harry's attention.

Tom Riddle was lying spreadeagled on the floor, sightless eyes staring into nothing and once-handsome face turned pale and waxen. His chest was still, and his wand had fallen from his hand, rolling away. The Killing Curse hadn't been meant for Snape... but for Tom.

Snape turned back to Harry. He'd known Harry was strong but he hadn't known Harry was capable of getting out of a Body-Bind cast by a wizard of Tom's ability.

"You?" he whispered, barely able to speak. Harry slowly shook his head, indicating for Snape to turn around.

Eileen Prince, the Disillusionment Charm that had kept her hidden from Tom and thus out of range of his Disarming Charm having broken when she'd used her own magic, was standing there, staring at Tom's body as if she couldn't quite work out why Tom wasn't alive any more. The smoke was still rising from her wand. Noticing the two wizards' eyes on it, she slowly lifted it up, staring at it for all of a second or two, before the pieces connected and she threw it to the ground with a little scream.

"Oh god," she cried, backing off, hands over her mouth. "Oh god, no, what have I done, what have I done??" She screamed the last words out hysterically, sinking to the floor as she backed into the wall, her whole body shaking as her mind went to pieces.

"Eileen," Harry whispered, moving towards her, but Snape was faster. Dragging himself to his feet, he staggered to her side and held her, stroking her hair and making soothing noises.

"It's all right, mam," he murmured, dropping his usual voice and returning to his childhood accent. "It's going to be all right. Harry an' me, we'll look after you. I promise. You're gonna be all righ', you are."

Eileen looked up at him, staring into his eyes. "Flippin' 'eck, our Severus," she whispered. "All right? I've just killed someone, the timeline's completely buggered up, and as if all that weren't bad enough, me son's a Yorkshireman." She wiped a tear away from her eye. "All told, I've had better nights." She looked again at Tom Riddle's body. "Oh god," she wept, before bursting into tears and burying her head in Snape's robes. Snape held her, whispering words of comfort all the while wondering what on earth they were going to do now. It was then that he got the shock of his life as Harry approached and put his arms around them both. Snape started at the touch, but he didn't hesitate long. Letting go of Eileen, he slipped an arm around Harry too and the three of them held each other for what seemed like eternity, three survivors forever linked by what they'd gone through. Snape glanced at Harry, wondering why on earth the boy was being affectionate to him after everything that had happened. Harry glanced up and managed a half-smile.

"Snape, you're a complete arse, but when it mattered, you told Riddle to go to hell. I won't forget that." He grimaced as he spoke the next words, as if they physically pained him. "Suppose you're not all bad. I mean, you do keep saving my life and everything."

"Thank you, Potter. Most gracious of you," Snape replied, resolutely hiding the pride that had flared within at Harry's words. "I shall remember that when I next feel the need for your approval." The malice that once would have underlain his words was absent though, and he almost found himself smiling as he looked at Harry. Then he noticed something unusual about the boy.

"Potter," he began. "Did you know your scar is gone?" Harry immediately felt his forehead, tracing where it had once been and gasping sharply as he realised his skin was smooth.

"What about your Mark?" Harry asked. Snape rolled his left sleeve back to reveal unblemished skin. Harry ran his fingers over it, before looking up at Snape with a smile.

"You've got your second chance back," he told him.

"And you're not the Boy Who Lived any more."

"Thank god," Harry grinned. He noticed the surprise on Snape's face. "What? You think I liked all the attention?"

"Well... yes," Snape admitted. Harry shook his head.

"Oh god, no, I hated it," said Harry cheerfully. "All the staring, all the talking about me, everyone wanting to be seen with the Boy Who Lived, the media charting my every move and blatantly making stuff up about me, all the minions of Voldemort trying to kill me – no, actually, I'm quite glad I don't have to put up with any of that any more, to be honest." He scrutinised Snape carefully, remembering how Snape had described looking forward to the end of the war and no longer having to work for Voldemort. Harry suddenly realised how Snape had felt. "You and I really misjudged each other, didn't we?" he said softly.

"I..." Snape chose his words very carefully. "It's possible I may have treated you a little unjustly in the past and that perhaps we have more in common than I previously thought," he admitted. Harry guessed that was probably as close to an apology as he was ever going to get from Snape, but he was still too stunned at realising his scar was gone to care.

"That's just it though," said Harry. "That past, it doesn't happen now. It never happens. You don't join the Death Eaters, my parents don't die, there's no war, no Order, you might not even be teaching now." Snape did break out into a blissful grin at that.

"And I don't die," said Eileen. Harry and Snape turned to her, both having temporarily forgotten she was there. She stared at both of them. "I don't get killed by... him!" She indicated where Tom's body was still lying. "I don't die!" she whispered. She looked like she was about to burst into tears again. Snape pulled her against him and gave Harry a worried look. Eileen's earlier words about the timeline having gone wrong came back to him.

"I think we may have a problem, Potter," said Snape softly. "If Eileen doesn't die, if the Dark Lord is not around to kill her, then the Harp of Ravenclaw never becomes a Horcrux, and we never get sent back in time. I think we may be in serious trouble."

"Your friend's Tempus Reversit worked better than she ever could have imagined, it seems," said Eileen. Harry's face fell as he began to realise the implications of all this... and then it clicked. Tempus Reversit. The time reversing spell, reversing time so it was as if the Horcrux Harp had never been.

"Yes," he whispered, "yes it did, of course, better than even Hermione could have planned." He looked from Eileen's confused face to Snape's and back. "Don't you see? This is what was meant to happen. The Horcrux was created when Voldemort killed Eileen Snape – so the spell acted to reverse that, so it would never happen. And how better to do it than to have Eileen kill Riddle instead, at a time when you were both relatively evenly matched, before Tom Riddle had started making Horcruxes and his soul was still intact? Snape and I got sent back to act as catalysts, to give you a reason, yes it all makes sense now!" Harry was positively glowing at having worked all this out. This must be how Hermione felt all the time.

"And the prophecy?" Snape asked. "You're meant to be the Chosen One, Potter."

"Not here though," said Harry. "The prophecy hasn't been made yet. Anyway, he's not the Dark Lord yet, is he? He's just a schoolboy, he's not made any Horcruxes, he's not yet founded the Death Eaters. The prophecy doesn't apply."

Eileen stared at Harry, at a loss as to what to make of this. "This... was rigged?" she said. "Pre-determined by a spell? You mean your friend's time reversing spell planned to turn me into a murderer?" She shrieked the last word out. Snape flinched back from her, but Harry was made of sterner stuff. Smiling, he took her hands in his.

"No," he said. "Not a murderer. You killed the Dark Lord. That doesn't make you a murderer. That makes you a hero."

"I'm very relieved to hear it," came a dry voice from the stairs. "But alas, I don't think the Ministry and Wizengamot will see it that way."

Eileen cried out in horror, clinging to Snape. Harry had already got his wand out and stepped in front of both of them... but when he saw who had appeared, he lowered it. Dumbledore, with Fawkes perched on his shoulder, was gazing at all three of them with eyes like thunder.

"I... I didn't mean to!" Eileen cried. Snape hushed her before turning to Dumbledore, gearing up for a fight.

"It wasn't her," he said. "She's got nothing to do with this. Potter – Harry and I, it was our doing."

Harry immediately took up the refrain, all his Gryffindor stubbornness in defending what he knew to be right coming to the fore. "That's right, sir. It was us. It was why we came back – Riddle's the Dark Lord in our time, the one who made Horcruxes."

"And he was about to kill Harry to make one," said Eileen, drying her eyes and pushing both boys aside to stand in front of them. "Severus tried to stop him, so Tom petrified Harry and started torturing Severus. So I killed him." She gasped as she heard herself say the words out loud. "Oh my god," she whispered. "I killed him!" She put a hand to her mouth as she sank to her knees.

"Eileen!" Harry said. "Don't – you shouldn't be punished for killing him! You've done the world a favour!" Both Harry and Snape turned to Dumbledore, pleading.

"Don't turn her in," Snape begged. "Please don't turn her in. She's fifteen, she has no idea. Punish us if you will, we know what the world would have been like if Riddle had lived, we can cope. But please, leave her alone. It's not her fault."

Dumbledore frowned deeply, but he was prevented from saying anything by Fawkes taking flight and landing on Eileen's shoulder. To everyone's astonishment, the phoenix began to sing, and the song lifted everyone up. It was a song of triumph, of light, love and loyalty, of victory and celebration. It was a song of hope and a new beginning. And as Fawkes sang, he began to cry and the tears splashed on to Eileen's face.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Oh, you're so beautiful!" She caressed the phoenix, which didn't seem to mind in the slightest, trilling as it did so. As the phoenix kept crying on Eileen's cheek, Eileen's own tears dried up and soon she was smiling, absolutely entranced by the bird. Watching, Dumbledore put his wand away. Harry and Snape both blinked on realising he was smiling. Was there hope after all?

"No truly Dark person can touch a phoenix with impunity, and Fawkes in particular would never willingly go to anyone wholly lost to the Light, much less heal their soul damage. In any case, I heard your conversation as I came up the stairs. I believe you."

Harry and Snape both released breaths they hadn't realised they'd been holding. Eileen looked up, her face shining.

"You won't turn me in?"

Dumbledore shook his head.

"In the light of what Mr. Potter and Mr. Snape are claiming, I rather think I should be presenting you with an award. But as it's not generally a good idea to be seen to be encouraging the murdering of one's fellow students, however much they might deserve it, I fear I will not be able to do that on this occasion. However, I can make some arrangements." With a wave of his wand, Riddle's body had been banished in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. "He has no family to press for an investigation, and I'm sure we can convince the rest of Slytherin House that he ventured into the forest alone and met with an unfortunate and tragic end. You three, of course, have not seen him all evening and he certainly never came up here."

"Of course," all three of them echoed, exchanging conspiratorial grins. Eileen in particular seemed quite recovered from the shock - whether due to the healing effects of the phoenix tears or due to realising that she was going to get away with it was a matter for debate, but nevertheless she seemed a lot happier.

"There is the little matter of Dark detection spells on the castle that record any dangerous and dark spells cast here, of which the Killing Curse is certainly one. Indeed, it was the alarms on those records going off that sent me up here," said Dumbledore. "However, as luck would have it, the Headmaster is at a Ministry function in London and not expected back until very late tonight. As Deputy Headmaster, it will be a simple matter for me to remove the evidence, particularly as no one but me has seen it."

Eileen actually squealed at this. Harry and Snape exchanged looks.

"Are we sure he was Gryffindor?" asked Harry. Snape nodded.

"So the records say."

"So they do," Dumbledore chuckled. "But what I never told anyone was that it was a very near thing between Gryffindor and Slytherin."

"I'm really not surprised," Snape murmured.

"I nearly got Sorted into Slytherin too," said Harry. "It was a very close thing in the end."

"Remind me to thank the Hat," Snape remarked dryly. Harry looked sharply to see Snape grinning at him.

"Oh. That was a joke, right?" Harry laughed faintly.

"Mostly, Potter. Mostly."

Dumbledore smiled indulgently and whistled Fawkes back over to him. Eileen looked rather disappointed as she watched the bird leave.

"My dear Miss Prince, I have no objection to you visiting my office to see Fawkes now and then if you wish," said Dumbledore, smiling and looking far more like the Headmaster he would become than Harry had yet seen him. "And now, I shall leave you young people to make your own way back to your houses. Goodnight." He left, humming to himself. Eileen also excused herself.

"I'll leave you two to talk," she said with a wink. "Severus, shall I meet you in the Entrance Hall in about half an hour?" Snape nodded, and Eileen was gone.

"So," said Harry. "Now what? The spell's played out – do we get to go back home or what?" Snape didn't answer him. "Snape?" Harry prodded him. "Say something?"

"It's a Time Reversing Spell," said Snape. "It undoes time, it returns the subject to their past. But they have to return to what they were the hard way. Potter, unless we can find a method of travelling into the future, we're not going anywhere."

"What?" cried Harry. "But... Ron, Hermione! I'll never see them again!"

"Not for many years," said Snape. "But Potter – Harry, don't you see? That time, the time we came from does not exist any more. Even if we were to travel to 1996 again, it would not be the time we left. You would not be on a Horcrux quest, I would be gainfully employed in a respectable career... and our selves in that time, the people we would have been, the people we will be without the Dark Lord's influence, they will not want two other versions of themselves turning up." He put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Harry. Eileen was wrong about the timeline imploding – the universe will deal with this, work around it and carry on as if nothing happened. But we can never go home again, because there is no home to go back to. This is home now, Harry."

Harry didn't answer. He was too busy thinking of all he'd left behind, all he'd never see again, of Ron, Hermione, Ginny, the rest of the Gryffindors he knew. Even the dreams he'd been harbouring since Riddle had died, of going back and finding his parents were still alive, that Sirius was alive and had never been to Azkaban, that everything was just generally better, had shattered. Yes, all that would happen, but not to him. It would happen to a boy that just happened to have his looks and his name, born forty years in the future. Tears began pricking at his eyeballs as he furiously wiped them away.

"Don't." Snape put an awkward arm around Harry. "Don't cry. I never was any good at dealing with tears, don't make me start now."

"Why would you care?" said Harry, his throat tightening. "Why the bloody hell would you care?"

"Potter, don't be a fool," Snape sighed. "We are not who we were, and certainly not who the other thought we were. And we are the only two from the old world who are left, the only ones who remember. That if nothing else ties us together."

"Is there anything else?" said Harry, pain making him irritable. "I mean, you never liked me before."

"I didn't know you before," said Snape. "But I've felt your magic since you were eleven, and it... unsettled me. It only grew over the years, and I think I was harsher than strictly necessary simply to keep myself from losing control over a student, and the son of my old enemy at that. But here you're not my student and my old enemy hasn't even been born yet. And if I want to lose myself in your magic, then I'm damn well going to." So saying, he turned Harry to face him, bent down and kissed him. Harry went very still, before his reflexes kicked in and he found himself opening his mouth and reaching out to pull Snape closer. Snape moaned as he did so, tightening his grip on Harry and running his hands through his hair. It wasn't long before Snape had Harry backed up against one of the pillars, kissing him passionately, erection rubbing against Harry's thigh. Harry wondered briefly how he'd ever tell Ron and Hermione about this... before remembering that his Ron and Hermione didn't exist and never would, and that it really didn't matter how they'd have reacted now. Snape was right – it was just the two of them left. Why not make the most of it?

"Reckon... Eileen... will approve?" Harry panted as Snape began fiddling with the zip on Harry's trousers.

"Approve?" Snape grunted, slipping a hand into Harry's boxers. "Judging from what I've seen so far, she'll be sending us flowers."

"She'll... what?" Harry gasped, then wriggled as Snape's fingers closed around his cock and Snape's teeth bit down at the base of his neck. "Oh... yes... do that again!"

"In case... you hadn't noticed..." Snape growled as he nibbled Harry's throat, resulting in yet more squirming and groaning, "my mother... appears to be... quite the pervert."

Harry remembered the knowing grin on Eileen's face when she'd - correctly, as it turned out - assumed he was interested in men, and decided Snape probably had a point. However, given that Snape had just dropped to his knees and taken Harry's cock in his mouth, he ceased to care about anything else.

Afterwards, Harry lay curled up next to Snape, head resting on his chest.

"What now?" Harry asked.

"Now? We should clean up, meet Eileen and go back to our respective houses. Eileen and I in particular will have to use our Occlumency to the best of our abilities and lie like hell. Then we will all have to look surprised when he doesn't come back tonight, and later turns up dead."

"I'm not talking about Riddle," Harry snapped. "I'm talking about us." He hesitated, wondering if he was assuming too much. "Is there even an us? One blowjob and a quick grope doesn't make us an item, does it?"

"Normally, it would not. But this is hardly a normal situation." Snape tightened his grip on Harry. "I won't lie to you. I am not a demonstrative man by nature, nor am I a romantic."

Harry snorted, remembering Snape blasting rose bushes at the Yule Ball. "I never would have guessed."

Snape lightly tapped Harry's face. "Impertinent brat. I don't know if we should call ourselves a couple or not. But I have no objections to further, er, encounters. I believe I can tolerate holding conversations with you in the process."

As declarations of affection went, it hardly ranked alongside the sonnets of Shakespeare or the poetry of Sappho. But it was a start.

"It'll do," Harry grinned, drawing closer to Snape. He might never have Ron, Hermione or Sirius back... but this might just do instead.

The disappearance of Tom Riddle caused no end of disturbance in Slytherin House, and that only increased when his body turned up in the Forbidden Forest two days later; what remained of it in any case. Suspicion immediately fell on Snape, Harry and Eileen, all of whom carefully refused to say anything until Eileen finally cracked and admitted the three of them had fled the school after the Priori Incantatem battle and taken refuge in the Forest, where Riddle had eventually found them. A war of words had broken out, only interrupted when the centaurs descended. They'd let Eileen, Harry and Snape go, as the boys looked young for their years and Eileen was only fifteen... but Riddle had always looked far too grown-up for his own good, and when the centaurs had closed in, promptly sealed his fate by antagonising them and trying to hex them. Snape and Harry had confirmed this story, and surprisingly, so had the centaurs, although they'd refused to name names. If Dumbledore had had any part in arranging this, he gave no sign of it. Dippet had in the end concluded death by misadventure and left it at that, the general consensus being that if Riddle had been stupid enough to piss off the centaurs, he deserved everything he got.

Much as had happened in the original 1981, the proto-Death Eater movement dissolved with its leader's death. Riddle's weakness had always been that he ruled more by fear and personal presence than by love and true loyalty, and when that was gone, those left behind did not mourn him much. Power in Slytherin defaulted to Abraxas Malfoy and Cygnus Black, although all the Slytherins not from wealthy families ended up drifting to Severus Snape's side. Meanwhile in Gryffindor, Harry Potter became a celebrity yet again as people gave him pats on the back for seeing off Tom Riddle. This only got worse once Minerva McGonagall discovered he could fly and promptly recruited him for the House Quidditch Team. It spoke much of how Snape and Eileen liked him that they still professed themselves willing to be friends, and even cheered for Gryffindor sometimes. It spoke much of how Harry liked them that he didn't take it personally when they didn't back him in the Slytherin/Gryffindor games.

It also transpired from the diary found on Riddle's body that he'd been responsible for the death of Myrtle Higgins last year, due to a basilisk he kept in a hidden chamber underneath the school. This resulted in the reinstatement of young Rubeus Hagrid as a student, much to Harry's delight. He set about taking the young half-giant under his wing and helping him catch up with the work he'd missed, although that wasn't much.

Riddle's diary also revealed he was responsible for the murder of his father and paternal grandparents. After examination of the man currently in Azkaban for this crime revealed that false memories of the deed had been implanted by Tom Riddle, Morfin Gaunt's conviction was overturned and he was released. He was found dead of alcohol poisoning six months later, but nevertheless he died with his name clear. The whole thing also induced a strange collective amnesia in Slytherin House as formerly close friends of the self-styled Heir of Slytherin suddenly declared that they'd always thought he was a bit odd and never liked him really, and wasn't the whole bloodlines controversy so last century anyway? So keen were they to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Riddle that they took the unprecedented step of talking Slughorn into announcing that Slytherin might be prepared to start accepting certain carefully selected Muggleborn students.

In 1944, the dark wizard Grindelwald intensified his campaign of terror and Dumbledore decided to intervene, putting together the first Order of the Phoenix to combat him. Unusually, he recruited some of the older Hogwarts students to assist with the research effort, most notably Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Harry Potter and Eileen Prince.

In 1945, the Muggle Second World War ended, and so did the Magical European War as Dumbledore brought down Grindelwald. That Severus Snape and Harry Potter were found the morning after the victory party curled up in a semi-naked heap with Snape clutching an empty bottle of Firewhiskey surprised no one... but it was rather more of a shock to find Minerva McGonagall and Eileen Prince curled up under a blanket with the remnants of several gin and tonics scattered around them.

By the beginning of 1946, Harry Potter was famous throughout the wizarding world yet again as the brilliant new Seeker for the Chudley Cannons, finally helping them break their losing streak and leading them to victory in the Championships. Harry silently raised a glass to the Ron Weasley yet to be born. Snape could only comment that at least he'd earned the fame this time around.

Snape meanwhile had scored the highest marks ever seen on his Potions NEWT, and his marks on Defence Against the Dark Arts weren't bad either. He was promptly hired by Arsenius Jigger's prestigious apothecary as an apprentice, during which time he managed to complete his apprenticeship in half the time normally taken by young wizards. Eileen Prince followed him the year after, although it took her the normal four years to complete her apprenticeship. There may or may not have been much private complaining about cheating time travellers.

In 1952, having finally sorted out proper citizenship records (the Ministry was fairly lax about this sort of thing on the whole, but the International Association of Quidditch was not), Harry made it on to the England team and captained them to victory in the World Cup two years later. Eileen was ecstatic and even Snape seemed pleased.

In 1956, with Harry's Quidditch earnings languishing in the bank doing nothing, he offered to help Eileen and Snape set up their own business, a long-term dream of theirs. In 1957, both of them resigned from their jobs and opened the Dark Firebird Alchemy Lab in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, named in memory of their Order days and specialising in difficult and hard to brew potions.

In 1958, Eileen turned down the young Muggle coal deliverer Tobias Snape who'd developed a bit of a crush on her. The space-time continuum did not fall apart. Tobias took the news well, married a local Muggle girl and had a daughter called Emily in 1960 who, due to some twist of fate, started showing signs of magic at age four. Four years later Tobias and his wife were killed in a road traffic accident that they might have survived had Tobias married a witch. Eileen immediately applied to adopt Emily Snape out of a sense of guilt, changing the girl's name to hers. Snape wholeheartedly approved, and Harry retired from professional Quidditch entirely to help Eileen look after the girl, at least until she went to Hogwarts anyway.

The years passed. Many things happened, which are a whole other story in themselves. But 1996 finally came around once more, and it found Harry Potter the elder (James Potter having been inspired to name his first-born after the great Seeker he remembered from his childhood) and Severus Snape on top of the Astronomy Tower, reminiscing.

"Well, we did it," said Harry softly. His hair had gone dark grey, but he still looked as youthful as ever. Snape by this time was far too fond of the brat to be jealous. "We got back to 1996 eventually."

"We did," said Snape, sipping his Firewhiskey. "Are you pleased with how it turned out?"

Harry shrugged. "Could be worse. Could be better. Sirius still died."

"He was, as I recall, needlessly tormenting a baby Manticore and then had the nerve to look surprised when it impaled him through the chest," Snape pointed out. "You cannot blame anyone other than him for that, the break-up with Lupin notwithstanding."

"Yeah but still," said Harry. "It hardly seems fair."

"Yes, well, maybe some things are just meant to be," said Snape. "Bellatrix Lestrange never went to Azkaban, she just went mad after her miscarriage and ended up in St. Mungos after claiming to be pregnant with the reborn Heir of Slytherin. Either way, she ends up as a deranged Voldemort-obsessed lunatic who's incarcerated for the good of all. Your young namesake is still fast friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and he's dating Ginevra Weasley. The Malfoy family are much the same as they always were except Lucius does not have anything like the political influence he once had, and Remus Lupin has recently fallen for Nymphadora Tonks. And look at who I could have been – Emily Pettigrew, formerly Prince and Snape, is married to Wormtail with two children in Hufflepuff... but she's still doing my old job."

"But the difference is she freely chose to, and she enjoys it," Harry grinned. "And the kids like her. Look at her with Neville – he was hopeless at Potions when he started and she managed to get him an E grade at the OWLs. He reckons she's one of his favourite teachers. She doesn't favour Slytherin as much as you used to either, although to be fair it's hard to see how anyone could."

"Behave yourself, brat." Snape playfully swatted at Harry, who dodged away, poking his tongue out. Snape turned back to look at the lake, and the reason they'd come back in the first place. The white tomb that had appeared earlier was shining in the moonlight.

"He still died in this very year, on the exact same day, at the same time," said Snape softly. "Harry, do you still want me to believe there is no such thing as fate?"

"He was 155," said Harry. "It was only a matter of time. At least this way it was peacefully in bed, as opposed to..." He stopped right there, remembering what happened in the original timeline.

"As opposed to me killing him?" said Snape. "Relax, Potter, I've long since come to terms with that. Having the man himself regularly dropping in to acquire Potions ingredients or pass requests along or ask us to come in and interview promising Potions students or drop veiled hints that Slughorn was thinking of retiring and would either Eileen or myself be interested in teaching cured me of any angst I might feel on that score."

Harry smiled, relieved as the stress he'd been carrying ever since Fawkes had turned up at Dark Firebird and attached himself to Eileen finally fell from his shoulders.

"Good," he said. "I'm glad. I've forgiven you for it as well."

"Have you really, Potter," said Snape, sounding bored rather than anything else. "I'm so glad you mentioned that. I never would have known otherwise. The fact that you've been sharing my bed for most nights since 1945 except when you've been touring with the various Quidditch teams you've played for really gave me no hints whatsoever."

"Cheeky bastard," Harry laughed. Smiling, he drew his lover in for a long, lingering kiss, all lips and tongues everywhere and fingers grasping at hair. When they finally broke apart, Snape was gasping. He staggered in Harry's arms, head resting on his shoulder.

"Harry," he whispered, clutching on to Harry's clothes as if for support. "My Harry." He closed his eyes, breathing in the magic. Fifty years on and it still made him feel as alive as it ever had. He must be just over seventy years old by now, he'd actually lived over eighty years in all, but he still felt young and he attributed that in large part to Harry's magic and the effect it had on him. He sometimes wished he could see the Ron and Hermione of the old world, just so he could thank them. He would never regret any of this, could never regret any of this. But sometimes, he wondered if Harry felt the same.

"Harry. If you could change things, put them back to the way they had been... would you?"

Harry frowned, puzzled. "What, back to the way they were before we were sent back?"

Snape nodded.

"But... why would I want to do that?" Harry asked. "My parents are dead there, Sirius is an outcast who gets murdered by his own cousin and the whole wizarding world gets ravaged by Voldemort. Why on earth would I want to go back to that?"

Snape shrugged. "You had friends there. Granger and Weasley, don't you miss them? What about your girlfriend, young Ginevra? Don't you ever wish you could have her in your arms again?" He felt his voice breaking on the last words.

Harry tightened his grip. He hadn't realised Snape was this worried about it. For Harry, this had long ceased to be an issue. True, he'd searched endlessly for a way back at first, but then Dumbledore had invited him to join the Order and he'd had no time to look. Then had come the celebrations, then the Cannons job and the Championship victories, then the England call-up and the World Cup wins and before he knew it he was in his thirties and it was far, far too late to ever go home again. Then Eileen had adopted Emily and he'd had a family to consider. And then somewhere along the line he'd realised that even if he could go back, he didn't want to. Perhaps it had been when the younger Harry had been born and there had been someone else there to live his old life now. He'd thought Snape had known that. Although, Harry thought guiltily, he'd never actually got around to telling him. Maybe that had been a mistake.

"No," he said. "No, not any more. Maybe once. But not now. Truth be told, I can barely remember what it felt like to hold her." He trailed a finger down Snape's cheek. "It's you I want these days. Just you. I love you, Severus. And I wouldn't change any of this for the world."

Snape barely reacted, just watching Harry closely. Then he pulled Harry to him and kissed him again, very gently this time.

"I love you too, you irritating little brat," he murmured. Harry laughed. Even after fifty years and more, Snape still thought of him as the bratty schoolboy he'd known before. It was actually rather endearing.

"Yes, but I'm your irritating little brat," Harry pouted, and somehow, despite Harry being an adult wizard of seventy, the expression did not look completely ridiculous on him.

"That you are," said Snape, leaning in to Harry as they watched the stars shine down on Hogwarts. "That you are."