AN: I'm tickled pink that you all seem to be enjoying my Flowerpot-turner fic so far! Welcome back to all my old friends, and special hugs to all my new readers who haven't been tortured by my cliffhangers before. You're gonna love 'em.

Not.

Now, I'd like you to meet my favorite Snape of all that I've written so far…


Hermione opened and closed her mouth repeatedly but nothing came out. Her brain was racing so fast it was actually making a sound, and from the escalating alarm on his face, she feared he could hear it through her skull.

Snape. Standing in the road, staring at her, was Severus Snape.

However, it wasn't her Snape. This one was young. Her age, if she had to guess. His face was the same, long beaky nose and squinty dark eyes, he had the same greasy, stringy hair, and the same skinny frame. His long, black robes were different, lacking their plethora of buttons—there were only four down the front and two on the cuff of each sleeve—and he didn't have the lines that age, tension, and bitterness had gouged into his features.

It occurred to her that he was somewhat homelier without them.

His body language was off as well. He didn't have the poise of his older self yet. His manner matched his features as they twitched back and forth from open curiosity, to what seemed like a self-conscious attempt to look indifferent.

"Why are you lying in the road dressed like a Muggle? That takes a bit of nerve in this day and age. Either that, or stupidity."

She shook her head, lost for words. It was so good to see him and, yet, patently wrong. Severus Snape was dead. "I don't…"

He grimaced and leaned closer, fastidiously sweeping his plain, black robes away from her as he did so. "Did you hit your head? Or are you always this… verbose?" he asked in an irritated voice. He kept staring at her, tilting his head first one way, and then another, as if trying to make sense of her. The effect made him look a bit like a confused bird.

Hermione realized she was smiling at him like an idiot, but couldn't help it. She couldn't wrap her mind around anything tangible that would help her understand what had happened. All she knew was that she wasn't in Amsterdam, there was muddy water dripping down her back, and Snape was alive and looking twenty years younger.

"I assure you, I am usually far more verbose. I-I must have hit my head. I think I'm dreaming…"

This fact seemed to alarm him even more. His brows swept down. "Do you require medical assistance?" he asked with sincere concern.

She shook her head, surprised at his reaction. "I-I'm not sure." Her head didn't hurt, but surely she must be concussed. Perhaps this wasn't Snape at all. Perhaps she was sitting in the mud smiling at a complete stranger while hallucinating.

He pulled out his wand and flicked it at her, and she recognized a Diagnostic Spell from the runes bouncing around in the air by her head. He tilted his head to the side again as he cancelled the charm and recast it. Frowning, he said, "It appears you're suffering from Temporal Displacement Syndrome."

"Temporal Displacement—"

The truth registered, and everything snapped into focus as to why she was sitting in the mud in Hogsmeade, staring up at very young-looking Professor Snape.

She'd gone back in time.

Shit.

This was a disaster! This meant everything she did could potentially change her future. Realizing exactly who she was interacting with, and how integral he was to her future, she moaned. "Oh, gods…"

He backed off a bit, but then leaned back in. "You've time-traveled," he said, enunciating as if she was too stupid to know what Temporal Displacement Syndrome was.

"Have I?" she said, panicking. "How extraordinary."

She finally scrambled up off the road and realized the muddy water had her top clinging to her front in a rather unseemly manner. She could almost make out the pattern of the lace on her bra through the wet fabric. Mortified, she swept her wand from head to toe to clean the mud off herself and looked up to catch Snape's moue of disappointment. That reaction was so disconcerting that she frantically busied herself with levitating her things into an orderly pile on the pavement in front of the tavern to try and hide her blushes.

"May I ask when you're from?" he said, flicking his wand and sending her books into a neat pile next to her grandmother's old lap desk.

"Best not," she replied, brushing mud off some of the books.

"It can't be that far off," he said, "judging from your clothing. Obviously the punk look is still the rage. What's that say on your t-shirt. Oasis? Don't know them. Have they had a hit?"

She blinked at him, trying to figure out what year it could be. Late seventies? Early Eighties? She didn't want to ask. In fact, she didn't want to speak with him at all.

"The future then," he continued as he helped her with her things. This last was said with a jarring tone of smug arrogance.

Mildly irritated by his tone, she asked, "What makes you so sure?"

He smirked at her, picking up a pair of her jeans and folding them before laying them on top of her growing pile. "Because you can't leap to the future and change your present. A person would only panic if they'd jumped to the past, and you're obviously in a panic." She could tell he thought his logic was impressive.

"Oh. Right."

"So have you?" Now he was all bald curiosity again.

"What?"

He huffed. "Changed the past?"

She sighed, bending down and picking up her beaded bag. The seams had exploded. "I think it stands to reason that the fact that I've interacted with anyone at all means I've changed things. In fact, perhaps it's best if you, you know, pretend you never saw me."

He went still, and for a moment his face held a shockingly eloquent expression of disappointment before it morphed into a familiar sneer. "Right. I can take a hint." He tossed her anorak back down onto the street and started walking away.

She blinked at the barely restrained note of dejection in his voice and realized she'd really stung him. He'd been nothing but helpful and understandably curious, and she'd gone and told him to shove off. It was painfully apparent that he was used to such treatment.

"Now, hang on," she called after him.

He turned back with a face full of surprise, defensiveness, and something that looked suspiciously like hope.

Good, heavens, how did he ever survive around Voldemort with a face like an open book?

"That's not how I meant it. I mean, well, it is, but… oh, bollocks." She walked over and stuck out her hand. He eyed it with confusion before he lifted his own. He had a surprisingly firm handshake. "Thank you, for helping. I do appreciate it. I just think it would be better if your future wasn't… compromised, you know? It's dangerous for you to talk to me. I could change—" Her thoughts skidded to a halt, and she clutched at his hand, causing him to look both alarmed and pleased. "Hang on, what am I saying? What the hell am I saying?"

Good lord! Why the hell wouldn't she want to change this man's future?

She looked up at him. "Strike that! On second thought, if you would be so kind as to help me gather the rest of my things, I would be ever so grateful. In fact, I'll buy you a pint."

Pulling his hand back and planting his fists on his hips, he stared at her for a long moment before he said, "You know me. We know each other in the future. Don't bother to lie, I can tell."

Wrinkling up her nose, she nodded her head.

"How?" he demanded. The note of curiosity was back, along with a good bit of excitement.

"Oh, well, yes, you see, you and I, um… In fact… No, that's no good. We were, ah… Oh, damnation." She folded her arms across her chest. This wasn't her professor; this was just a young man making demands of someone he'd just met. Fight rude with rude, she thought. "I'm not telling you."

He scowled and folded his arms as well. "I want an explanation."

"Well, you can't have one."

"I could find out if I wanted to, you know. I have ways," he said in a tone that quavered between threat, braggadocio, and petulance.

His manner startled her. It was so… unSnape-like. "Good lord. Are you bragging about that? That's… Ew, no. Don't do that. You never bragged. You always had gravitas."

His eyebrows shot up. "I did?"

"Absolutely."

That gave him pause, and he chewed the idea over for a few moments. "Huh." He lifted his wand and went back to helping her move things. "How long did it take me to develop that?"

"I don't know. You had it when I met you."

"And that was in, what, eighty-two? Eighty-three?"

She giggled. "Nice try."

He snorted and together they set about clearing her possessions out of the road.

There was something innately amusing about having such a boyish Severus Snape help her with her things. He would be gracious one moment and invasive the next. He took care to help clean the mud off her things, and yet she caught him trying to read both her copy of Hogwarts, A History and her personal journal. She found her opinion of him bouncing from one extreme to another, and before long decided he was a somewhat charming pain in the arse. Like a decidedly less chirpy Colin Creevey.

He blushed magnificently when a pile of clothing fell apart in midair and left him with one of her bras hanging off the tip of his wand. She laughed and plucked it off. She laughed even harder when she found him holding up one of her thongs, obviously confused. "Are these knickers or some kind of slingshot?"

She swiped them out of his hands. "You know very well what they are. Show some manners."

He scowled at the rebuke, but she saw him smirking as he turned away.

"Why do you have a tent?" he asked holding it up.

"Long story."

He hoisted up her small strongbox and set it down with the last of her things. "That was heavy, what's in it?"

She sighed. "My life savings."

"Really? How peculiar. Why don't you keep it in the bank?"

"Because the Goblins hate me."

"Why?"

"Another long story." Seeing that they were all finished up, she turned and sat down on a stack of books, offering another stack for him to do the same. To her surprise, he did.

Leaning his elbows on his knees and fidgeting with his wand, he looked over his shoulder at her and asked, "Can you at least tell me how you ended up sprawled in the street with all of your things?"

She sighed. "I thought I was taking a Portkey to Amsterdam. I left from Hogsmeade, but it appears I didn't actually go anywhere."

"Portkey? So not a Time-turner accident, then? I thought for sure that was the case."

"Why? Are they common?"

"Well, that's what you usually read about when these things make the papers. In fact, I think it was a year ago that the Wizengamot was making noises about rounding up the last of them to prevent anymore mischief."

"If it's that common, do you think there's a chance someone at the Ministry would know how to send me back?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. It makes sense to me that there would be. But if it was just a wonky Portkey, maybe all you need to do is reverse it and try again."

"Do you think?" She jumped up and began digging through her things, finally coming up with the broken, green flowerpot. She narrowed her eyes at it. "This was red when I got it at the Ministry."

"Was it? Pass it here."

He examined it at length, casting several spells she didn't recognize. Finally, he handed it back, shaking his head. "That's not a Portkey at all."

"What is it?"

"A broken flowerpot." She rolled her eyes but he held up his hand. "What I'm saying is whatever magic was in it dissipated when you went further back than when it was cast."

"Oh. That makes sense. That must have been what happened to my bag. I'd cast an Undetectable Extension Charm on it."

"Well, it's buggered now," he said.

She sat down heavily on her books. "And so am I."

The door opened beside them and Trelawney stepped out, tottering off down the street in a daze, not paying either of them any mind.

"And so am I," he said with a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry. I have to go. I have an appointment."

She didn't like the way his face had changed. Gone were all traces of his earnestness and all that was left was a resigned despair. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He opened his mouth to reply, but closed it and shook his head. "Nothing. It's just that I have a job interview. And now I'm going to be a bit late." He stood up. "It was nice meeting you, Miss…?"

"Hermione," she said. "Call me Hermione."

"Hermione, then. Good luck with your problem. I wish you well."

"You too… Severus."

His eyes lit up for a fraction of a moment, and he smiled at her. Sinistra had been right. His smile changed his face completely. She felt a loss when it slid away and he frowned. "Right. Bull by the horns and all that rot." He turned and entered The Hogs Head, the door closing with a soft thump behind him.

She found herself smiling at the door. That had been a rather amazing experience. She'd just met a whole new Severus Snape, one she hadn't known existed. This hadn't been the professor she'd known at all. This had been an oddly charming and awkward guy, prickly and defensive one minute, and eager to show off the next. It was as if he was still straddling the line between child-like curiosity and the jaded cynicism he would later hone to an art form.

It occurred to her that Lily Evans had to still be alive. Surely that had been his defining moment, the thing that would harden him and forge the selfless, yet bitter, spy. She just didn't see how it was possible for him to be this openly curious and damned-near friendly otherwise.

She wondered if her interaction with him could have already affected the future. Could their one pleasant interaction make even a slight dent in that man's life?

She shook her head. That thought was not only highly improbable, but grossly narcissistic.

Turning, she watched Trelawney tottering down the street. The woman looked even more out of it than usual. Hermione frowned. The Divination teacher really was wearing an atrocious outfit. What on earth would have possessed her to wear it? Knowing Trelawney, she'd probably picked it out because her inner eye had told her to.

Hermione looked back down at her sundered beaded bag just as realization struck her with an almost palpable blow. She whipped her head around and stared at the door Snape had just passed through and then back down the street at Trelawney, fading out of view into the gloom of the night. 'You're interfering with an auspicious event. Destiny awaits. I have an appointment, and lives will change because if it. I have seen it! I mustn't be late…'

"Oh, good lord! Oh, my god!"

She jumped up and started flapping her hands in the air in panic and then realized the full implication and started bouncing around in the street in jubilation.

"I think I've done it! I think I've just changed history!"

She danced in a full circle as she raced through the possible ramifications of Snape's never hearing Trelawney's prophesy.

He was saved! Harry's parents were saved! Sirius was saved! Remus, Tonks, and Fred were saved! Pesky Colin Creevey was saved! Dumbledore! Her parents—

She stopped, sagging slowly to her stack of books. Her parents were saved. In fact, they were only a short Apparition away, off in London… tending their—what, twenty-month old daughter? Snape started at the school in eighty-one. But wait, hadn't he overheard the prophecy before Harry was born? Then maybe… No. That was Trelawney's job interview, for sure, and Snape hadn't eavesdropped on it.

She'd changed the future. She'd changed her life.

All of a moment, everything came crashing down on her. She had no one to share her joy. She was lost in the past with no one to turn to and nowhere to go.

She lifted her head and stared at the door to the tavern. But it seemed as if she had made a friend.

Lifting up her beaded bag, she began carefully repairing it.

First things first.

:

Hermione sat in the tavern with two pints on the table before her. Her hands were shoved under her thighs and both of her legs bounced in tandem. She kept her head down and her hair in her face to avoid the rude stares of the other patrons. Aberforth paced behind the bar, growling with increasing menace at the men who were making rude comments. Apparently, in this day and age, not many witches frequented the place alone. Well, not many respectable witches anyway.

She was about to give it up as a bad job and bolt, when a door opened up along the gallery above. She looked up and saw the once and future Half-blood Prince walking dejectedly down the stairs. She jumped up, bumping the table and sloshing both drinks as she waved to him. He stopped and looked around before he continued over towards her, looking confused.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked.

She pointed to the table. "I owed you a pint," she replied.

He blinked several times and looked around again. "Have you been sitting here the whole time?"

She bit her lip and nodded.

He narrowed his eyes. "I bet you're a Gryffindor, aren't you."

She laughed and sat down. "Of course I am. Now, sit. Please."

He snorted and pulled the chair out. "A bossy one at that."

"You have no idea."

"I have a glimmer of one. I'm a quick study." He reached for his glass and held it up. "Cheers."

She smiled and took a sip of hers as well, licking the foam off her lip. She would have preferred butterbeer, but she'd been too intimidated to order one, sure the other patrons would have laughed at her.

"So you looked a bit down in the dumps when you came out," she said. "Didn't you get the job?"

He sat back and sighed heavily. "I did."

"Really? But you look so unhappy. Don't you want it?"

His face soured. "No."

She grimaced. Her nosiness had filled in a good amount of his biography after he'd died, and she had an inkling of an idea about just how unhappy he was. "Then don't take it. You don't have to, you know."

He gave a sharp bark of a laugh. "How little you know."

She winced. He looked the picture of abject misery. Impulsively, she reached out and laid her hand over his wrist. "I know a lot more than you would want me to, Severus. Nothing's cast in stone, you know. You can choose for yourself."

He stared down at their hands and then his head snapped up to hers. The pleading desperation in his eyes cut her to the quick. "Is this it?" he asked. "Did you come back in time to change my fate?"

She grimaced and pulled her hand back. "I didn't intentionally come here. I'm not sure how I ended up here, but I did figure out that the future I came from is already changed, so there's nothing to stop you from changing as well. I say do what you want to do, not what people expect of you." She took a sip of her ale and carefully set it back down on the coaster wondering if she was causing more harm than good.

He tilted his head to the side. "I don't understand you."

She laughed. "Trust me, you're not the only one."

He gave her a hesitant, uncertain smile and then took another sip of his own. Nodding to the door, he asked, "Where are your things?"

She held up her beaded bag. "I fixed it. It won't hold, but it should last a day or two, long enough that I can get another."

He nodded. "So what are you going to do? Have you got a plan?"

"I'm going to see about a room at The Leaky for the night and then head to the Ministry in the morning and ask them for help."

Snape tossed his head to the side, angling it towards the stairs he'd just come down. "Professor Dumbledore is up there, you know. He might be able to help you."

She blanched. Of course Dumbledore was up there. She swallowed with difficulty. "I'd… just as soon ask the Ministry, thanks."

He narrowed his eyes at that. "Don't you like Dumbledore?" he asked in a quiet voice.

Sighing, she shook her head. "I respect him, yes, but like? Let's just stick with respect."

He kept her squirming under his gaze, and she almost missed the subtle invasion of his mind. Incensed, she slapped her hands over her eyes. "Stay out," she snapped. She took a moment to try and call up the rudimentary Occlumency shields she'd taught herself while on the run with Harry and Ron. When she had them more or less in place, she opened her eyes and glared at him.

He had the decency to blush, which did nothing for his looks. "Sorry." He leaned forward across the table. "But you can't just leave me hanging there. Why? I thought all you Gryffindors thought the world of him."

"We did. We do. I just… grew up, is all. Look, I don't think this is a good subject for us."

He scowled and sat back. "I thought you said your future was already gone."

"It is," she said. "But I don't know how different it will be. Please, I know it's frustrating, but…"

"Why are you really here," he said with a sneer.

Her eyes widened at his change of manner. Like an unruly child denied a treat, he was throwing a tantrum.

"Why did you wait for me? And don't give me any tripe about owing me a pint, this time. You'll be gone again this time tomorrow, so you can't pretend it's because you cared."

Good heaven's but he was a handful.

She shook her head. "I did want to have a drink with you," she said. "Where I come from, I never got the chance."

His face softened, and he sat forward. "Then we aren't friends? Where you come from?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?" he asked. "I thought we were. You were so…" He waved his hand at the door, rather than supply the missing word. "You said you know me." He looked down at his glass. "You don't appear to hate me."

Her heart went out to him. He was obviously completely confused as to why she was being nice. Her sitting in a puddle grinning at him probably had thoroughly flummoxed him.

"I don't. Lots of people don't hate you in your future," she said ambiguously. She couldn't say a lot of people liked him. That would be pushing things too far. He'd always had a knack for knowing a lie when he'd heard one.

"Then why aren't we friends?" he asked in a soft voice that didn't hide the disappointment.

She sighed. "Several reasons," she said. "First, you're a bit older than me than the present situation would have you think."

"Really? How much older?"

She shook her head and flicked his question away. "Secondly, you always had too much on your mind to entertain the thought."

He scowled. More than that, he sat back, folded his arms across his chest, and scowled ferociously. "I'm your bloody teacher, aren't I? That's how you know me."

She blinked at his lightning-quick deduction and knew her face had given the truth away.

He snorted and shook his head. "But I couldn't have been for long, you're what, nineteen? Twenty? I start next term, so that would make you a… fifth-year? Sixth? I honestly don't remember you from when I was there, sorry."

He scrunched up his face. "Damn. It's a paradox, isn't it? I suppose this does complicate things." He gave a firm nod of his head. "Very well. I promise not to treat you differently from any other student until you tell me you're back from this little adventure. Then we can have another pint on me, alright?" He gave her such an earnest smile, almost Ron-like in its hopefulness, that she found herself smiling back.

"It's a date," she said with a laugh, lifting her glass and holding it out.

He grinned at her, looking slightly dazed and giddy as he reached for his glass and clinked it against hers. She thought she might have seen his chest puff out just a bit.

She remembered Aurora's words only a little while before, saying how there'd never been any other girl. She flushed and returned his smile, euphoric and a little daunted at the notion that Severus Snape had just scored his first date… with her.

His smile broadened as he sipped his ale. He really did look much better when he smiled.

Beyond his shoulder, the door opened and a tumble of young men came in.

Snape turned, still smiling, to see what all the noise and bother was.

Hermione watched the grin freeze on his face as Snape locked eyes with Sirius Black, flanked by Remus Lupin, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew.

The temperature in the room plummeted.

:


*cackles madly*

:

AN2: I can pretty much guarantee I will fall behind on reviews, since home schooling is in full swing, this sucker needs heavy editing on the fly, and Guild Wars 2 is coming out in a few days. My dork card is full.

Also? This story was edited while the song Gangnam Style was stuck in my head. Everyone must listen to it so they can be tortured too, and then you must blame MistressBlackSnape.