When Harry Potter discovered that the prophecy wasn't completely right, it was too late. Even though it had said that they could not both live, that one would die and one would live, it had never said outright…that that exact scenario had to happen.
Turns out, as long as one of them died, the other might as well, which was pretty much what happened that fateful day when Harry and Voldemort arrived at their final confrontation. In a battle of wills and might they traded spells and exhausted their magical stores.
Among the confusion and noise that oft accompanied battle, amid the acrid smoke and wayward spells shot off from both sides in that particular clash of armies, did the-boy-who-lived and he-who-must-not-be-named vanquish each other, forever and eternally.
The self-proclaimed Dark Lord went up in a pyre of flame reminiscent to that of a funeral's, his ashes scattering to the four corners of the earth, blown by a hefty sigh of relief from up above at the prophecy's final call. The Wizarding world's savior stayed grounded, crumpled to the ground when he was felled by the aftershock of his own spell, the spell that defeated his life-time enemy.
It was with a cacophonous mix of cheers and sobs that everyone heard the news, Voldemort was dead! Finally!
But Harry Potter was dead as well.
Hermione sobbed into Ron's robes, headless of the blood and sweat mingling with her tears, he wrapped her in his arms numbly staring ahead.
Fred Weasley laughed hysterically to the heavens above that opened and poured down rain, he'd lost his better half and a good friend, looked like he was on the receiving end of a divine joke indeed.
Nymphadora Tonks changed her appearance to suit the occasion, a color scheme inspired by the poisoned and passed on Potion's Master of Hogwarts, smiling bitterly down at her fallen werewolf lover, hands clasped loosely around her belly in a premonition of life to come.
Minerva McGonagall, resident Transfigurations professor and newly crowned Headmistress allowed a tear to arc down her cheek, blending in with the rain, before she began making order of the chaos that she was surrounded by.
And so on and so forth. Their reactions aren't the least bit important to the story, so they had best not take up more of the page than intended. Back Mrs. Weasley! Go hug someone else to your voluptuous bosom!
No, this story starts a bit later. In that long ass line you stand in to await your eventual assignment to Heaven or Hell, where a certain green eyed scar face has just reached that one scary looking lady, who reminds everyone of McGonagall, holding a clipboard and wafty-ish looking quill. That's, where this particular story starts.
"Name?" the lady demanded abruptly, Harry blinked owlishly. "Your Name, child, or you'll be sent to Hell for wasting my time."
"Ah, H-Harry James Potter, M'am." He stuttered out, frightened by the harsh demeanor of the lady as she quickly scanned down the list. He waited rather patiently as she scanned over it a second time, then a third, and then a fourth before she looked back at him, lips pursed on consternation.
"That your real name?" she flicked her quill like it was a whip, Harry could easily think of which side she was from.
"Er-yes?" Harry was deeply unnerved by this woman, she was like a cross between McGonagall and Snape, the bitter, hateful love-child they never had.
"So then, Mister Potter," the lady leaned over her clipboard to hiss at him in a low voice, a rather asexual voice he realized, not male nor female, he repressed a shiver as her eyes, which lacked pupils, scowled down at him. "Why are you not recognized by the Clipboard of Fate?" he blinked at her again.
"C-Clipboard of…Fate?" he repeated dumbly. The lady drew herself up straight suddenly and spared him another glare before scribbling something down and tapping it to make it implode on itself.
Harry supposed it was some form of communication because seconds later scrap of parchment wafted down from nowhere into her waiting hand. She snapped it out of the air with perhaps more force than necessary and scanned over it, an evil smile spreading over her face that sent foreboding shudders down Harry's spine.
"Well, Mister Potter," she imploded the note without writing a reply and towered over him with an air of cruel satisfaction. "it appears that the Fate's messed up, you're going back. Lucky you."
"Really? I'll be alive again?" Harry grinned happily, a smile that was struck from his face at the lady's next words.
"No, of course not. Your body's already been burned, nope, Mister Potter, you're going back as a ghost!" she cackled evilly and Harry gaped at her, jaws working to say something but his vocal cords had run away. "Now then, I've never been good at spells like this, probably due to some sort of repressed anger issues, so I might send you back to the wrong time…or the wrong dimension…or even the wrong world all together soooo, don't worry a titch!"
Harry though she seemed mighty cheerful for admitting weakness in a certain field, and…it didn't seem like she was repressing any anger…just basing it off what he had seen so far. "Bye-bye Mister Potter!" he heard a loud BOOM and he blacked out.
"Hey Snivellus! How long has been since you've washed your hair?" Severus Snape scowled and clutched his books tighter to his chest as he quickened his pace, intent on ignoring the jeers directed at him by the four Gryffindors who seemed hell bent on making his life miserable.
"Look at him run! Like the little Death Eater he is!" loud verbal agreements met James Potter's remark. Severus spared them one of his famous glares and hurried on, closing his ears to the loud, mocking laughter. He had to dodge a stinging hex, but otherwise remained unscathed as he walked deeper into the dungeons.
He didn't have that many friends, Severus accepted that, but he still never quite saw the point to constantly targeting him among the other Slytherins available for bullying. Safe within the confines of his room, being Head boy had its merits for sure, Severus thumped his books on his desk, loosened his tie around his neck, threw his robes over a chair, and lay back on his bed, arms crossed behind his head.
-Stupid Gryffindors,- he glared up at the dark stoned ceiling and twisted a lock of lanky hair behind his fingers, it always was greased back to keep his long hair from getting in potions. –I bet the fumes from failed potions have already turned their brains to mush. What does Lily even see in that bigoted jerk?-
Severus sighed at the thought of his red-headed Gryffindor friend, if that was what she was anymore. Potter had been pursuing the girl for a while, and it seemed like she wasn't as averse to his advances than Severus would have expected. –So much for being my supportive friend.- he sat up with another sigh. –Might as well get to my homework then, nothing better to do.-
The dark-haired teen grabbed his books and collapsed back on his bed to start reading the required pages assigned in Charms and Transfigurations then finish up a paper on Ancient Runes. When he was finished, Severus grabbed the latest issue of Potions Weekly, scanning over the contents for the actually interesting things. –Someone's finally made improvements on the Butterflagon Conundrum Draught, hopefully they'll change the name someday…I should start a petition against the ridiculous naming of potions, maybe sue the people who name them in the first place…- he mused as he lazily flicked through, throwing it aside in the end in boredom.
–There's nothing interesting anymore, why doesn't people create potions that have use anymore? Myself not included, of course, I did after all contribute to the latest findings in the cure for Inherent Beffudlement and Confunding.- he allowed himself a prideful smirk before rolling off the bed and onto his feet, moving quickly to the makeshift lab he'd constructed in a corner that had previously held a large wardrobe and primping station.
Simmering under a stasis spell in his well-loved and used cauldron sat a very volatile and delicate-to-make potion he'd been experimenting on for the last few months, since school had begun and he was granted his own personal chambers, to his delight and the horror of the professors who knew his habits well.
Cancelling the stasis spell, Severus sniffed and reeled back at the stench, smirking in satisfaction even as he did, because Slytherins never smiled. They smirked and left the world to shiver and wonder in fear what they had done to make them so pleased. "Good, this is better than I had expected." Severus muttered, adding a pinch of chicken scales and watching in exuberance as the simmering concoction belched out an acrid black smoke.
It would have his room smelling like crisped and boiled Manticore intestines for a couple of weeks when it was done, but all for the greater good, right? Well…and the greater evil, I stand corrected. Apologies.
Severus rubbed his hands together in delighted anticipation, the slow grin that spread over his pale, drawn face would have anyone diving for cover were in public. It was a premonition for horror to come, and vengeance, most certainly vengeance. "Oh, this will be wonderful, simply wonderful. Oh how I love you, dearest cauldron, to the ends of the Earth and beyond!" he cackled as was called for, then stopped.
Was that…an echo?
Severus quickly scanned the perimeter of his rooms, that couldn't be. His rooms weren't vast enough to echo, and the echo wasn't much of a cackle, more of a…amused chuckle?
"Who's there?" Severus demanded, drawing his wand from the waistband of his regrettably muggle jeans, his black slacks were all dirty and Severus Snape was not one to even consider gallivanting around in, Merlin forbid, soiled clothing, despite popular belief of course. Nothing answered, not even an echo.
With one last suspicious peruse of the room and it's dark, cobweb infested corners, Severus turned back to his potion, which had turned a color reminiscent of a first year's puke just the day before in the Great Hall when he'd been hit with some sort of hex that Severus hadn't been interested in. "I may actually finish this one." He murmured to himself, a rare true smile gracing his face, making it seem just a bit less dead than usual.
But of course, he forgot to knock on wood, and our favorite little Slyth jinxed himself and his potion, if you want to think of it that way. Almost immediately after his words, the potion exploded for no reason at all, completely unprovoked you might say, no one had called it any bad names, or insulted its parentage.
Well, except for its unexpected new cauldron buddy, if you want to get all technical, it's buddy being a familiar unconscious ghost with a hero-complex. But for Severus it was completely unexpected, he having blacked out mere milliseconds after the initial explosion.
Turns out, that love-child of Snape and McGonagall had some competence in the field of transporting accidental ghosts back to the land of the living…just not enough to get the right time…or dimension for that matter.
Harry Potter woke to find himself in the remains of what seemed to be an exploded cauldron, still smoking as it was, and in unfamiliar surroundings. Blinking rapidly to clear his vision he realized that wherever he was smoke filled the air, and not the kind that wafted lazily up from little cheery fires. It was poisonous looking stuff, the kind you got suffocated from in just one breath.
Someone coughed violently and Harry half-floated half-climbed out of the cauldron, looking around for the source of the coughing, it sounded to him like whoever it was, was hacking up a lung. He reached up to adjust his glasses then realized he didn't have or need them anymore and spied a pile of robes that were convulsing in a rather worrying manner.
Hurrying over, Harry knelt at the side of the person and reached out a tentative hand to a shuddering shoulder. "A-are you a-alive?" he asked hesitantly then smacked himself inwardly for the stupid question, of course they were alive, it was just a matter of whether or not they were going to live for much longer.
"G-grey *cough* b-bottle…" the voice sounded strangely familiar as the convulsing student lifted a wavering finger, pointing towards a glass cabinet filled with potions of all sorts before collapsing in on himself, the voice was definitely male, as another merciless coughing fit attacked. Harry nodded and floated over quickly, reaching through the glass to realize that…he couldn't touch material things.
"Oh Merlin's magical ball sack." He cursed. "What'm I supposed to do now?" then he remembered a certain poltergeist, if Peeves could lift objects, then Harry bloody Potter was determined to do the same, screw the rules! He was around as proof that any law or theory could be disproved in a matter of minutes, or hours depending on the law and amount of explosives needed, courtesy of the Weasley twins and their genius.
Concentrating hard and reaching for what he later christened his 'awesome ghost skills', (Or what are formally known as 'Ghostly Influence'.) Harry lifted the potion the boy had described to him, luckily there only one definite grey bottle, and began pulling it out. It's progress was halted suddenly and Harry frowned in consternation then inwardly smacked himself again as he remembered the glass door, opening that as well.
The coughing grew worse behind him and once Harry had successfully extracted the bottle from the cabinet, with a little victorious pat on the back for his good work, the ex-savior hurried back to the boy and knelt by his side again. His uncorked the bottle, with minor difficulties as he came across the problem of the wax seal, (Who seals emergency potions anyways?) solved by the power of brute force, and turned to the boy over to lower the potion to his lips.
Luckily, he didn't have to force the student to drink, Harry didn't know what he would have done if that were the case, and whoever it was began ceasing to shudder and convulse as the coughs lessened. By then, the air had cleared considerably, due to some sort of magical vent in the air that worked horribly slow in activating, someone would have to get around to fixing that, and Harry set aside the bottle.
"Phew, I'll bet that was a close one." He sighed in relief, passing a translucent hand over his forehead, wiping away nonexistent sweat.
"Wh-who are you? And what are you doing in my room?" Harry focused on the boy, registering for the first time his features, and his jaw went slack.
"Y-y-you…" he managed to stutter out. Staring up at him tiredly but suspiciously, was a considerably younger Severus Snape. Harry fell back in a faint, something he had never thought possible for a ghost to accomplish, much less follow through with.
Yaaaaay, Severus almost diiiiied! No...wait, that's not a 'yaaaay' moment. Lemme readjust that one: Yaaaaay, Harry diiiied! Better, better. But he's a ghost now! Like a poltergeist type thingy...like PEEVES. I like Peeves, he makes me happy inside. :D I think Peeves and Harry should become friends, terrorize the little ittle firsties when Harry isn't allowed to bother Sevvie, since he does, you know, have to actually study and...yeah.(Booooo, says the procrastinator, booooo.) I'd never be in Ravenclaw...or perhaps I could convince the sorting hat to let me go there so I can wreak havoc? hmmm, a good plan.
Did anyone else wait with bated breaths on their eleventh birthday for that fateful letter? JK Rowling disappoints me, she should set up some sort of fund that will supply money for an orginization thats only purpose is to address and send Hogwarts letters, that'd be bat scat awesome. Don'tcha concur? You should tell me...in a review! (Did it work?) Will I have to do a dance? I am the Lord of Dance, maybe even the Mistress of Magma...will you do it...FOR PONY?(sorry, complete plagiarism there)
Disclaimer(s): I dun own Harry Potter, if I did...it would be such a pit of gayness and ruin that I think even the homosexuals would be repulsed...though, what if writers actually did go onto fanfiction and wrote and read the many butcherings of their stories? That's be both creepy...and epic. But I digress, I also do not own the webcomic 'Looking for Group' which is awesome, which is why I don't own it, which is why you should go see it (I own a shirt...that's actually my brooooothers...but...he doesn't knooooow :D)
~Witty