Disclaimer: I am not J K Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Further Disclaimer: This is (still) a story regarding a universe-hopping Harry Potter, set in an alternate reality, with events and characters featured that may differ widely from canon. As a reminder, it is tagged as both 'Parody' and 'Horror'.

Note: This chapter only covers the summer between the sixth and seventh year. It seemed to make more sense to put it out as its own chapter rather than to try and edit it down and cram it in with what's going to be coming in the seventh year. Be warned, Harry is about to have rather a rough ride...


"What happened?" Harry croaked.

The last thing which Harry could remember was his seventeenth birthday party. Obviously the blood-wards on Privet Drive had fallen by then, but Harry had had replacements which should have been just as good – at least against Voldemort and anyone with a Dark Mark – ready and in place for weeks to save him the inconvenience of having to move.

His eyes were open but his vision was blurry. He was lying in some sort of bed. He thought one of the blurs looked and sounded like Lily Malfoy, and others could be her brother and her parents.

"…Fallen angel… French agents… held off and snatched… only just in time…"

Words were drifting to him, but he was losing consciousness and the world was spinning. There was a foul taste in his mouth all of a sudden, and then he was dropping into a nightmare-infested world.


The attack on Harry Potter by the fallen angel which had, for the past year or so, been masquerading as a quiet, mousy-haired human teenager by the name of Erica Lucille Megine was easily in the top ten worst experiences of Harry's existence, probably tied with his fight of three years ago with the deranged Neville Longbottom for third place and ahead of such experiences as his first (and thankfully only) sighting of the Beast of Hufflepuff and the duel between Flitwick and Dolores-as-god-queen. Harry suspected it would have made a higher place on the list if he could actually remember the assault in any detail, but fortunately his memory of it was very blurred, restricted to a vague recollection of a horribly beautiful being and freezing cold bright blue flames accompanied by the sensation of his life being slowly sucked out of him, like toothpaste squeezed out of a tube. It was the sort of thing that was probably mind-shatteringly horrible. The Dursleys who had simply been in the same house as it when it had happened had all been reduced to nervous wrecks by the awfulness of it and sent away for counselling with professional magical mind-healers. Three of the four French aurors who had snatched him from the fallen angel's clutches had similarly been sent for attention, despite a lifetime of experiences of tracking down hardened criminals and confronting the aftermath of grisly crimes. The fourth auror, like Harry, seemed to be just about coping, because his mind had blanked out most of the details, too.

The attack put Harry in Saint Genevieve's for a fortnight, the first five days in a critical condition from which he probably never would have emerged without the attention of Nicolas Flamel. Had Richelieu not, it turned out, been quietly infiltrating French aurors and agents into Privet Drive ever since the summer of '93 when Dumbledore had been sacked in the aftermath of the Beast of Hufflepuff business, putting a number of brave men and women virtually on the scene when the earth-shattering event happened, there would have been no hope at all for Harry – or probably for the Dursleys either, once the fallen angel had finished with him. As it was, besides the enforced period of recuperation, the attack had cost Harry his wand (which had apparently burnt out during the attack) and the backlash from the forces involved had been sufficient to remotely kill Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, three times in rapid succession. (The latter was probably something to do with the fact that Fawkes had contributed the feather which had been the core of Harry's wand.)

The Malfoys had property close to Saint Genevieve's, which they had moved to as soon as they heard about the attack, and they came by every day of Harry's convalescence to check how Harry was doing; Professor Flitwick also came out several times from Beauxbatons.

Richelieu popped by Harry's hospital bed, on day ten of his recuperation, to see how he was progressing and to inform him that it seemed the attack had originated with Voldemort.

"If there is a wizard or witch other than Voldemort, sufficiently insane, powerful, and evil enough to send a fallen angel after you in particular, then he or she has not yet come to our attention." Richelieu dryly observed. "We have checked most carefully."

Richelieu actually had some good news – principally that fallen angels came expensive in terms of whatever it was they were paid in, and Richelieu doubted that Voldemort would be able to muster the 'collateral' to pay for another attempt for several years. In other words, so long as Harry didn't take up fallen-angel hunting as a hobby, having survived this attack, that should be it from such horribly deadly entities for now.

Harry retorted that he'd rather take up basilisk hunting with sticks of sharpened chalk, to which Richelieu gave a gallic chuckle, patted Harry on the shoulder and reminded him he had an appointment in Azkaban in eight days time, so he had better be out of bed soon, and left him to it.

Azkaban, to interview Severus Snape – right, Harry reminded himself. He wondered what sarcastic things Mr. Ollivander was going to say when he stopped by his shop to try and get a replacement wand before then? Oh well, at least Ollivander hadn't been abducted in this universe, as far as he knew.


Once he was out of hospital, Harry had tried before he returned to England (in the interests of possibly getting a replacement 'brother wand' made in case Voldemort's had not been impacted by the fallen angel attack) to get a feather from Fawkes, but apparently the phoenix was too traumatised by recent events to have contact with anyone except Dumbledore.

As it turned out, one trip to Ollivander's later, it would have been wasted, anyway.

"Why didn't you tell me your previous wand had been destroyed in an attack by a fallen angel?" Ollivander asked, after Harry had gone through every wand in his shop and stockroom.

"I didn't think it was pertinent." Harry said.

"Due to lingering residue from the attack, Mr. Potter, the only wand likely to function for you as your own for the next few years is one with a core of a lock of hair from either the fallen angel who attacked you or freely given by your true love."

There were times when Harry hated whatever mysterious rules governed wand construction.

He was just going to have to make do with the wand he'd borrowed from the French auror service for now, even if the thing occasionally misfired. It was going to take him weeks to get up the courage to ask Draco's sister, Lily, for a lock of her hair because she was his one true love in this universe, and he needed it for a wand…

Oh well, back to stay in the Leaky Cauldron, for the next day or two, and then off to Azkaban.


Azkaban, even without the dementors, was still a grim place.

Harry Potter surveyed the man who in so many other universes was the potions master of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, but in this one was a virtually forgotten man in a prison cell.

He looked in surprisingly good health and was relatively kempt for an Azkaban prisoner. He wore his prison uniform as if it was the finest set of dress robes.

"Ah, Potter. You're a dead man, but you look surprisingly solid for a ghost." Severus Snape said, his voice sounding only slightly crazed. "So why have you come to visit me, in my royal apartments?"

"I'm not James Potter, sir." Harry said, coming forward slightly so that Severus could get a better look at his face. "I'm his son, Harry."

"Ah, the spawn. Well, Potter, you may not be a dead man yet, but you are nearly a dead man walking. You have no comprehension of the forces arrayed which could crush you like a bug if you put but one foot out of place. The guards think I'm crazy, Potter, but I am safe here, Potter. This is the last place that almost anyone will come looking for me. I am a prisoner of Azkaban, and therefore surely harmless, and conveniently ignorable. Unlike generations of Potters, I feel no need to parade myself or hog the limelight."

"Sir. A very clever man recommended that I come here and talk to you. He seemed to think that you might be able to help me in some way."

"Clearly not Albus Dumbledore then." Severus Snape cast a rapid appraising glance over Harry, and sneered. "He is hardly clever, and besides, I gather that even the dumbest of public officials have recently recognised that he has gone gaga. Professor Binns managed to force everyone to recognise his inherent madness." He grinned at the thought. "But I have little interest in assisting the son of James Potter.

Harry tried not to show his shock at the reference to Dumbledore. Apparently Severus Snape was, somehow, relatively well informed of current events.

"I'm not just the son of James Potter, though, sir." Harry said earnestly. "I'm the son of Lily, whom you knew at school and was, I gather, one of your best friends for the majority of your time at Hogwarts. For the sake of my dead mother, sir, won't you help her son?"

Harry was not expecting Severus Snape's reaction. The man stared at him for a moment, and then threw back his head and started laughing uproariously.

"The look on your face. You don't know." Tears of mirth rolled down Severus Snape's cheeks. "You honestly don't know, do you, Potter? I speak to your mother at least once a month. She brings me news of the outside world and her doings."

"What? Her ghost visits you in Azkaban?"

"Her ghost, Potter? That would be kind to you if I lied and pretended it was her ghost. No, Potter, your mother, Lily, is alive and well and the mistress of Regulus Black. She finds me a useful confessor, to whom to spill her deepest, darkest, secrets – a confidante who isn't going anywhere, and whose words, even if I broke silence, would be dismissed as the ravings of a deranged lunatic. And she has some dark secrets these days, oh how she does. She's spent years immersed in the Black library, and is a veritable living, breathing, encyclopedia of the dark arts. Twenty years ago I'd have sold my soul to see her so. Now, I mourn the tragedy of her lost innocence, but console myself that at least she is alive, loved, and rising in power with the passing of every year."


For a while longer, Severus Snape continued to rant and boast about Lily. He seemed a torn man, simultaneously proud and revolted by what she had become. He explained to Harry that the Dark Lord had promised Severus he would not kill her, but that he regarded Snape's pleas for Lily's life as treachery to the cause and turned him in to the aurors because of it. He said he had heard from Lily that the Dark Lord had gone to Godric's Hollow, that night, and held her in an imprisoning spell, whilst he turned his wand on Harry – and how a Potter house-elf had flung itself in the way of the first killing curse, desperate to protect 'master Harry', and the second curse had brought the house down. And he had told how Regulus had found her barely alive in the rubble, and rescued her, creating a fake body from her blood and a piece of her hair moments before Moody and Hagrid arrived, and sent her away to Grimmauld Place where she had been hidden from any Death Eaters that might look to bring revenge down upon her head. And a dark and desperate relationship had bloomed, between Lily and her protector and rescuer, which had turned into something resembling love.

Severus Snape seemed to enjoy telling Harry about her – and how sometimes she brought one of her children to see him – seeing how much these revelations shook Harry. But he would say absolutely nothing about her deeper thoughts, or what she and Regulus planned to do.

By the end of it, Harry could see why Richelieu had wanted him to see Snape. He had no idea how much of this the under-secretary knew, or had guessed, but there was no way Harry would have believed half of this if he had not heard it from Snape's own lips.

He thanked Severus Snape as politely as he could manage, and took his leave of the madman. Harry wanted to dismiss what he'd been told, but too much of it made sense in the context of things he already knew.

He had got in a question towards the end of his allotted time about the locket with the note in the cave, but Severus had just stared at him blankly, as if he were crazy, so either Severus had obliviated himself after doing it, or someone else had done it but tried to cast the blame on Snape – not that Voldemort had apparently ever come looking.

The holiday had started off for Harry so well with some good croquet practice with his Aunt Petunia and an astonishing find in an old junk shop in Diagon Alley, but after his birthday, it had gone speedily downhill.

Harry just hoped that there weren't any further nasty surprises to come before he got back to school. This was definitely the worst summer holiday he'd had in a long time.


Author Notes:

I hesitated a while over this one, not least because of the fallen angel attack, which was rewritten several times. In theory she was on a 'seduce and corrupt or destroy' mission from Voldemort. (Indeed she had the surname 'Megine' as an anagram of the French word 'énigme', which my dictionary informs me is a suitable equivalent of the English word 'riddle'.) She did put out a few feelers towards the end of Harry's sixth year to see how susceptible to seduction Harry might be, but was rebuffed by Harry due to his attachment to Lily Malfoy. So she waited until the blood wards (which were more than a significant nuisance to her) went down on his seventeenth birthday, and moved in for the kill. Not Voldemort, not dark-marked, ergo Harry's replacement wards were no hindrance to her...

No, Erica was not killed by the French aurors who snatched Harry from her clutches as she was busy 'toying' with him, but she was driven off, and under the rules she operates under, that had to be it (until or unless someone else pays an appropriate price for her services).

The whole fallen angel idea came about since I'm not sure that I've seen a fanfiction where Voldemort ever sends a female in with orders to attempt to romantically inveigle herself with Harry, although I doubt I can be the first to think of it. Anyway, I thought the idea was worth a go (and might well be something this Harry probably hadn't come across before).

Moving on to Azkaban, this particular Severus Snape is insane. Although there haven't been any dementors in Azkaban for some years by the time Harry comes to visit him, there were for the first few years of his imprisonment, and he gets the added bonus of monthly visits from Lily which are also damaging to his psyche. He wants to stay in Azkaban because it's the only place he's certain he's safe from a variety of enemies he's certain are waiting to destroy him. In truth the only person who might want to kill him is probably Lily if he started spilling her confidences, but he'd rather die than betray those.

Severus is at least slightly exaggerating or playing up some of the things he says to Harry about Lily, because he wants to hurt this James Potter mark II (this is possibly the first time this Severus Snape has ever seen this Harry Potter, and this Harry looks much more like James than the Lily Severus sees on a monthly basis) as much as possible.

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