The blond spun toward him. "Professor?" he asked with a hint of deference. Not much, mind you, but enough to be surprising in a Malfoy.

That was interesting. The other life was very real to the Malfoy. That could likely be used to Severus's advantage. This one time, Severus did not insist that he be called by his first name. "Yeah, about that. Could you pass this letter on to your father for me? That fool Dumbledore's watching me like a hawk." Insulting the Headmaster had always made Lucius smile, and his son was evidently little different.

The younger Malfoy smiled conspiratorally at him. "Sure thing, Professor." Lucius had never been so openly friendly while they were in school together.

"Thank you," Severus said, politely nodding to the older boy as well as the Crabbe and Goyle clones flanking him. He walked away calmly, not daring to look back for fear his excitement would show. Stepping out of the Slytherin Common Room, he took a moment to lean against the wall and breath out a sigh of relief. That had been weird. Meetings with Lucious never went so completely in his favor. There might be something to that professor thing after all.

He forced himself to recover quickly before anyone saw him using a wall for support. He hurried to the Great Hall for breakfast, and dropped into a chair across from Malcolm Balddock at the Slytherin Table. "Hi." He saw the girl, Katryna Tragyl, whom he had talked to the night before and smiled politely in her direction. She grinned back and waved. Severus's smile became a tad more genuine as he turned away from her.

Malcolm Baddock was looking at him as though he had just done something extraordinary. Severus turned to look behind him, just in case the look was directed at some two-headed monster that he hadn't noticed. Just the wall there, though. Facing Malcolm again, he raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Y-you smiled."

A little polite smile had caused that reaction? Severus couldn't repress an incredulous stare at his year-mate."Yeah," he agreed, carefully, as if facing a small, stupid, easily-offended child with a pet rabid dog.

"You normally don't, ya know?"

Well, he was certainly getting that impression. "Not really," he said, shrugging. "Don't remember being old." He must've been a dour fellow if people couldn't believe he knew how to smile. Sad, really. Severus didn't think he really much cared for the impression he was getting of his older self. Though, he had to admit, the grown-up version was a spy. That was cool.

"Really? Not at all?" Graham Pritchard, who was sitting next to Malcolm, asked.

Resigning himself to a conversation of convincing them of his twelve years of age, Severus nodded. "Really."

"What was that nightmare about last night?" Malcolm asked suddenly. "Bloody well scared me out of my skin when you yelled like that."

Severus thought fast. He didn't know who in Slytherin was for the Dark Lord in this time. Besides it would be stupid to keep telling people that he was a spy. Potter . . . He probably shouldn't have told Potter, but James's son surely couldn't go Dark. The secret should be safe with him. "Damian Goyle stole my Potions homework and Professor Gray accused me of copying him, which is just stupid. Goyle couldn't write a potions essay worth more than a D even if he asked a genie for it. Then Dumbledore tried to expel me for cheating, and I was trying to explain that the essay was mine when I woke up." Severus gave them both a hard look. "Don't either of you even think about stealing my homework."

The two Slytherins exchanged looks that Severus couldn't decipher. "You're going to do homework?" Graham finally asked.

Severus gave him an odd look. "Yeah. I'm a second year. It's my job to do homework."

"It just seems weird that a professor needs to take second-year classes and do homework."

Severus frowned. "I'm not a professor. I'm twelve."

Malcolm and Graham looked at each other again. "Well, he does dream about homework," Malcolm pointed out to the other boy. Graham nodded. Malcolm turned back to Severus. "Is Damian Goyle any relation to Greg Goyle in fifth year?"

Severus shrugged, "His dad, best as I can figure. It's freaky, y'know? Looking around and seeing Goyle and Potter and Malfoy when everybody else has changed. Malfoy especially. He looks just like Lucius and is about the same age as I remember Lucius to be. Goyle and Potter were both my year." He glanced toward the teacher's table. "Lupin, too."

"Professor Lupin?"

Severus grinned. "He wasn't Professor Lupin back then. Just little Remus." The two Slytherins grinned back, evil delight dancing in their eyes. Severus's eye fell on the professor in question again, and he sobered. "He's not little anymore." All grown-up and with greying hair was little Remus Lupin.

"Nasty shock waking up with everything changed, Prof - um, Severus?" Malcolm caught himself from saying 'professor' and only stumbled over the first name a little. Severus was mildly amused.

"Rather," he agreed dryly. "It's like time travel, only every seems to expect you to know what an alternate version of yourself used to know. I thought the Headmaster was joking when he said the year. And me? A Professor? I'm surprised my older self has the patience."

"He, er, you, er, he doesn't," Graham fumbled. "Haven't you noticed that people tread softly around you? Twelve year old or not, they're afraid you'll hand out detention at the least provocation. Specially the people in other Houses."

Severus made a face. "That popular, was I?"

After that bit of news, he was a little surprised to see Malcolm laugh easily at his remark. "You have no idea, Sev."

Severus narrowed his eyes at the nickname, but did not comment. He'd put too much effort into convincing them he was their age to jeopardize it. And he wasn't going to go through the next five years of Hogwarts without any friends in his class. Assuming he didn't turn back into a grown-up, which, he got the impression, Dumbledore was trying to figure out how to do.

His first class of 1995 was Transfigurations. It was an interesting transition. McGonagall's teaching style was exactly the same, the handwriting on the board comfortingly familiar. He even sort of remembered this particular lecture and exercise. But she was noticably older, and the class had the marked improvement of not including Sirius Black or James Potter.

Once McGonagall had finished going over the theory and handed out the sticks to turn into salamanders, she came to Severus's table. "Severus."

He looked up. "Professor?"

"How much of transfiguration class do you remember?"

Severus shrugged. "I think I'm a few lessons ahead of everyone else here. I sort of remember doing this before. Well, trying to, before Black turned his twig into a miniture fire-breathing dragon."

Was that a hint of a grimace on her face? Perhaps the memory was as awful for her as it was for him. Possibly even more awful. Gryffindor or not, she had been the teacher in charge. Out of necessity, he was finding it easier to see things from the teacher's point of view. "Really, I think I'm good for transfig. It might have been thirty years for you, but it was last week for me."

The memories of last week were a little more fuzzy and filled with holes than a few days should have made them, but he wasn't about to mention that. He felt naked enough missing the memories of the last twenty-seven years, nevermind letting people know that the memories he did have were incomplete.

Besides. It wasn't like anybody else could remember back then any better.

That night, Severus stared up at the ceiling of the dormatory, half afraid to go to sleep. What if he had another nightmare? He had successfully deflected attention from it at breakfast this morning, but if he made a habit of it (which seemed decidely likely) they'd get suspicious. If that happened, he could propbably foist blame from Voldemort to the time shift thingie and all associated problems thereof. Which were ultimately Voldemort's fault, too, but that wasn't common knowledge.

His other fear, even greater than of the nightmares, and less easily explained, was that Voldemort would try summoning him again. If he woke screaming in pain and clutching his left arm, rumours would start, and no doubt someone would figure it out. This was Slytherin House, after all, and the Dark Lord had been around for some thirty-odd years now. He wasn't new and relatively unknown anymore.

The other Second Years were sleeping soundly. The proof of this was that Graham was snoring and nobody else had done anything to stop it. Restless, Severus decided he'd take another late night walk. That way, assuming that if he got summoned again, it would happen at the same time, he wouldn't be where he could be overheard. Hopefully, he wouldn't get summoned. That hurt.

He was halfway up to the Astronomy Tower when a quiet voice called out, "Prof - er, Severus!" Perhaps he should seriously consider changing his name to Prof. Most people seemed to call him that already. He turned around, and wasn't terribly surprised to see Potter. Well, what was surprising was that it was just Potter's head floating in mid air. But this being (a) Hogwarts and (b) James's son, he wasn't especially worried about the missing parts of the older boy.

"You only have a head," Severus pointed out. Worried, he wasn't. Disconcerted, he was. Running around headless was almost understandable, but heading around bodiless? That was less normal.

Potter looked briefly surprised, as though it were Severus running around the school without his body, but then understanding and embarassment appeared on his face. "Oh. Invisibility cloak." He took the cloak entirely off, and the rest of him became visible again. "Sorry 'bout that."

Severus shrugged. "I wasn't worried. That's gotta be useful."

Potter grinned. "You bet."

"Wonder if I can afford one. Gotta have something in Gringotts, right? I mean, I've been a teacher for who knows how long, and I was my parent's only heir before they, they um, you know. Gave me my inheritance." Wow, that sounded weak. Gotta cover. "How much do you suppose a cloak like that goes for?"

Blast, Potter was still looking at him with pity. Fortunately, he did answer the last question rather than insist on talking about the other stuff. That had been a mistake to bring up. He really didn't want to think about his parents in any way, shape, or form. He knew, intellectually, that they - had given up their inheritance - but he wasn't ready to think about the implications of that yet. "Dunno. I got mine from my dad," Potter answered.

Of course James would have an Invisibility cloak. "That makes a frightening amount of sense, from what I know of James. How," how to put this? "What does he do now?" Remus was a professor. Where were the rest of the people he had known?

Potter looked stricken. An unpleasant feeling fluttered in Severus's stomach. "He's dead," Harry said shortly.

No. James was. James is. James ever shall be. James couldn't die. James was too Gryffindor to die. Too insanely lucky. Severus shook his head. "Can't be. He's James Bloody Potter."

Harry barked a short. bitter laugh. "All this time I thought his middle name was Harold."

Somehow, that made him believe it. "Merlin. He was just -" well, no. He'd had Harry. He couldn't have been just a kid. "My age," he finished instead. Which was tricky bit of truth, all things considered. "How?" Then added quickly, because he knew how he himself would have responded, "If you don't mind talking about it?"

By the look on his face, he did mind, but he answered anyway. "Voldemort killed them."

Them? "Your mum too?"

He nodded.

There really wasn't much he could say to that except, "I'm sorry. James was all right. For a Gryffindor." He realized he had no idea who Harry's mum was, and aside from eye colour, Harry's appearance didn't give many clues. "He was only twelve when I last remember him. Uuum. Who, ah, was, um, Mrs. Potter?" James, married. That was something to think about. Scary.

Severus was oddly glad to see Harry smile at his discomfort. "Lily."

"Not Lily Evans," he denied with barely a pause, which should have told him that it was, indeed, Lily Evans. He should know by now that his gut reaction was usually right.

"Did you know her, too?" Harry asked, almost eagerly.

"Lily was" strange, "nice." Frightening, really, how he was already talking about her in past tense. "No," he denied aloud. "Not Lily. Why would Vold - oh. She's mudblood, isn't she?" Severus squeezed his eyes closed, missing flash of anger in Harry's. "Lucius always went on and on about purebloods and stuff. But Lily was nice. You never remembered that kind of stuff when you were around her."

He opened his eyes and looked at Harry again. His green eyes were just like hers, Severus noticed, now that he knew. "Took the Express with her back to Hogwarts this year. Er." Blasted time. "Whatever. She's a - was a Gryffindor, of course. Thought she was going to play a trick when she sat in my compartment. After James and Sirius, most Slytherins of my year had that impression of all Gryffindors. I had been reading, and it turned out she knew the book and the author. Talked about his stuff for the rest of the trip."

"Who?" At Severus's confused look, Harry clarified, "Which author?"

"Oh. Tolkien."

"Mum liked Tolkien?"

Severus shrugged. "Seemed to. Her favorite was Pippin." Severus considered that. "Which really makes a lot of sense, considering she ended up married to James." Harry was looking at him like he had just given him the keys to Gringotts. "You don't remember them at all, do you?"

Harry shook his head. "I was only one." There was a brief pause in the conversation. "You really don't remember anything between your second year and now, do you?"

Severus shrugged. "I remember waking up in the hospital wing almost two days ago. Why do you ask?"

"Because everyone knows Lily and James Potter are dead and I was only a baby when it happened."

Everyone did? Severus cocked his head curiously. "Why's that?"

"Because I lived, and Voldemort disappeared for ten years because of it. Got this scar to remember it by." He lifted his bangs, revealing a lightning shaped scar on his forehead.

Severus peered at it, but shrugged, loosing interest as soon as the bangs fell back over it. It was a cool scar, as scars go, but he was more curious about, "How'd you get that?"

Harry made a grim face. "Reflected an adava kedevra."

Severus's eyes widened. "Really?"

"That's what I've been told."

"That is so cool." Harry's brows rose in surprise. "Of course, I've got it cooler. I was I spy who was caught, turned back into a kid, and forcefully made to forget the last twenty-seven years, but when asked, you can say the unique event in your life was that you lived through the killing curse and defeated Voldemort as a toddler. I mean, how many people get to say that?"

Harry just stared at him.

"Just you, I imagine, but correct me if I'm wrong."

Harry shook his head. "No, you're right," he confirmed faintly.

"See? There you go."

"Anyone ever tell you that you were weird, Severus?"

Severus grinned. "I'm usually not this talkative, so most folk don't realize it. Back in Hogwarts, that is, back when I remember coming from, I spent most of my time reading and doing homework. Well, except when I was tripping up James and Sirius. And that was pretty much a solitary activity, too. Unless you count Potter and Black. But really the only words exchanged were insults and hexes. It was fun."

Harry shook his head wordlessly. "So why are you being so, um, friendly, to me?"

Good question. Severus shrugged. "You didn't freak out last night. Um, right, about that, while we're on the subject. Thank you."

If anything, Harry looked even more surprised by that than his assessment of the adava kedavra scar.

"Oh, please. Not you, too." Harry blinked, so Severus expounded, "Getting bugged out by me being polite. Can't grow up the son of Drusella Snape and not get courtesy and manners pounded into you every day."

"Then what happened to you?" Harry asked before he could stop himself. He regretted it immediately, Severus saw, but the words were out there.

Severus shrugged. "Dunno. That's a question for the potions master, not the second year. I'm still polite. Well, usually."

"My dad being one of the exceptions?"

Grinning, Severus shook his head. "It's perfectly valid to insult someone who insults you. James gives as good as he gets."

A look of pain crossed Harry's face, and Severus mentally cursed himself before remembering that he wasn't the one who brought James up. Then he realized that the problem was probably that he had used present tense when talking about the elder Potter. Blasted time warp that kills people while you're not looking.

"Um," Severus shifted uncomfortably. "I guess I should go back to bed now."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, probably." Before Severus could turn away, though, the older boy asked, "Severus?"

"Yeah?"

"Your welcome."

Severus grinned. "Good night, Harry."

"Good night, Severus."

Severus hesitated a moment, then asked carefully, "See you tomorrow night?"

Harry picked up his invisibility cloak, and grinned. "Right after I see you."

That night he chased away Voldemort nightmares with a dream of a twelve year old James wearing dress robes, standing at a wedding altar with twelve year old Lily Evans. Behind them, fifteen year old Harry Potter cheered, shouting things like 'Marry her already, Dad!' and 'Say I do, Mum!' Severus wasn't terribly certain which was the more frightening to wake up to.