The Prince & the Professor

Disclaimer – Of course I do not own Harry Potter and if I made money off of this do you imagine that I'd write so infrequently?

Author's Note – So I'm experimenting with the classic time-travel plot. Severus's – ah- love interest, however, is gong to be someone rather different. It will be slash but nothing graphic as I don't write smut. This begins during Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The writing style is, I hope, fluent, as I am unused to first-person present POV.

Chapter One – The Solution

An internal monologue is a precious thing. It enables you to keep yourself company, discuss your secrets and tell someone about how deeply that person over there just wounded you – even though you will never admit it to anyone else. The monologue is a truly remarkable thing, in that it is self-deception at its best. The monologue creates the illusion that you have an audience. That someone in this world is on your side.

Even the great have their weaknesses. The truth is that no one is on my side. That I am perfectly alone with my perfect audience: Myself.

That is why I am talking to myself in class: because no one else is.

I inhale the scent of the potion bubbling before me and rub my eyes with my wrist because my hands are sticky with chopped toad juice. I survey my potion carefully. The gently simmering navy blue liquid is the perfect colour. I squint down at it – the texture is too grainy. Ignoring the textbook, I scoop two tablespoons more dragon fat into the mixture.

Really, what those fools fail to understand is that instructions are always limited by variables! Take this potion, a particularly difficult brew. Goeforthe's Mistake-Reversal Solution. A quaint little mixture that allows the drinker to reverse time for five minutes in order to correct some critical mistake, like re-winding one of my father's idiotic muggle videos – it's perfect for Potions, naturally. It depends greatly on the temperature of the fire conjured underneath the cauldron. Now the spells cast by teenage wizards are highly unreliable! Most will fail simply because the heat under their cauldrons is too hot or too cold. Nothing in the class text makes reference to this.

I watch my potion achieve perfection. That's what I love about potions. Using basic logic it is possible to create moments when your life is –

"Hey Snivellus!"

Steaming blue potion rushes up at me and I –

There is a clang, the feel of scalding pewter, I can't breathe, and I can hear screams. I roll out onto the hard dungeon floor, which is slick with spilt potion. My spilt potion. One of those idiotic Gryffindors has ruined two months of preparation!

I refuse to open my eyes. I'm quite comfortable on the floor, really - I am - I'll just pretend to be dead, as dead as Black wanted me to be last year. Let them worry, I –

- I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry – I REFUSE TO LET THEM SEE ME CRY!

"Professor Slughorn?" a quavering voice nearby asks "Did… did anyone else ever have anyone… erm… appear in their Mistake-Reversal Solution?"

What?

"Er… no, Mr Weasley, I believe that you have, um, set the precedent, as it were."

Appear in someone else's cauldron? And there is no one called Weasley in my class!

I must have drunk too much of the potion – perhaps this is an earlier class? But only sixth-year N.E.W.T classes cover the Reversal Solution, and there is only one this year. Have I gone further back in time?

A hand touches me on the shoulder and, much to my chagrin, I flinch.

"He's wearing Slytherin robes, Professor!"

Five points to the idiot with good eyesight.

I decide to open my eyes - a close-up of Slughorn's nostrils – exactly what I wanted to see. Wait, his moustache seemed greyer, his beefy face more… lined.

"What are you doing here, m'boy?"

Could I have imbibed so much mistake-reversal solution that the opposite effect has taken place? Dagworth-Granger's theorem at work! Strangely, it made me feel better knowing that I had just proven a well-known theory regarding Goeforthe's famous brew.

"Oh you know me, sir." I said dryly, "I always travel by cauldron."

A slight titter ran around the class. That proves it. No one who knew me in school would have laughed at one of my witticisms. It would have been far too un-cool – wretched word.

"That may be, that may be…" A plump hand hauled me to my feet. Registering the fact that I am completely coated in blue potion, I reach into my pocket for my wand – thank Merlin it remains whole!

But Slughorn beat me to it. A tap on the chest and I am dry and free of blue gunk - I am not, however, free of the sweaty hand that retains an iron grip on the fingers of my left hand, already burnt from the cauldron.

"Continue with your potions, please. Weasley - it's too late to start again - watch how Mr Potter does it."

Potter? The hated name – one which it has been my dubious honour to loath with a vengeance since first year. Could it be his -?

"Come on," the Professor drags me out of the class and down the hall and knocks on the door of his office.

Why would a teacher knock at their own office door? This was the office designated to the Head of Slytherin House, was it not?

"Enter," calls a voice from within.

Slughorn pushed the door open and I found myself staring at shelves and shelves of preserving jars, containing all manner of rare ingredients. The effect was pleasantly macabre. Surely that was a golden snidgit on the top shelf? And wasn't that a jar of Chimaera eyes – that practically was the definition of black market! I have dreamt of owning a collection such as this.

Then I catch sight of the man seated at the office desk. And I know. Once glance and I know: shoulder-length, black hair, a hooked nose, a sallow complexion and eyes so black that the pupil is hardly distinguishable from the iris.

"Severus," Slughorn says, his voice oddly cautious, "this boy appeared in my class – I thought you might know something about it."

We stare at each other, the man and I, ignoring Slughorn.

"Indeed…" the man says slowly, "This is my son. He is also called Severus."

Agree with me, the eyes say.

"Father," I acknowledge politely.

Slughorn looks from one expressionless face to another. "I'll leave you to deal with him then," he blusters, "and I really must ask you to be stricter with your son. No more appearing in Gryffindor cauldrons. It's most disruptive.

The door closes behind him.

I feel the man reach into my mind. My late mother was a skilled practitioner of Legilimency – learning to defend my mind against her was something I learnt long before I even knew the proper name for what I was doing. But I do not block this attempt – instead, I feed my interrogator all the relevant memories.

"I see," the man says. "So you have proved Dagworth-Granger's theorum? Interesting…" He pauses, running a finger along his lower lip. "You have come twenty years forward in time. But I do not recall this. Therefore, we must assume that there is still another Severus Snape coping with a particularly unpleasant potions class."

"You are a Professor," it was a statement rather than a question.

"I am," the older Snape nods, "I teach Defence Against the Dark Arts."

We smile secretly at each other, like co-conspirators. And I am glad. My wishes have been granted. I have travelled to another place, where there is someone whom I can trust implicitly – someone who knows my deepest secrets, someone who understands me perfectly.

"Tell me everything."

S.S – S.S – S.S – S.S – S.S

I make my way into the Great Hall. I feel very odd, knowing that there will be no one I know. Professor Snape – I have taken to thinking of him thus to achieve some separation between us – and I agreed on an acceptable back-story and went to see Professor McGonagall, because Dumbledore is apparently away from the castle at present. We told her that I am the professor's son, whom he has only just found out about because my "mother" never told him she was pregnant. However, she has just been despatched by dragon pox, leaving her sixteen year-old, home-schooled son in the care his new-found father. Touching, isn't it?

So here I am on the end of the Slytherin table helping myself to some mushroom soup. Used to introversion, I make no effort to socialize with those sitting near me. Doubtless the cauldron story had already spread, and my peculiar resemblance to Professor Snape is being discussed – but why not make the most of a mystery? Let them wonder.

Black and Potter are dead. That's what the professor told me. And Pettigrew was completely under Professor Snape's thumb – acting as his servant, even! How delightful! I almost spill some of my soup.

"You must not do anything that will discredit me as a Death Eater. As you have already been to a few meetings, you know what to expect. During the holidays I anticipate I shall be called to bring you before the Dark Lord." A smile had played around the professor's mouth. "But of course, you of all people understand the game I play."

"What's your name?" asks a thickset girl, interrupting my reverie.

"Severus Snape," I say, enjoying her obvious surprise, "I'm his son."

"Oh! I never heard he had any kids… why didn't you come to Hogwarts sooner?"

"My mother had custody."

The troll-like girl grins and slaps me one the back rather harder than I care for. Actually, I do not appreciate anyone touching me at all.

"Well, welcome to Hogwarts, Mr Snape. I'm Millicent Bulstrode."

She grins at me and then starts to slop up her soup in the most disgusting fashion. I lower my spoon and push away the bowl.

Nevertheless, discourse must be resumed.

"Bulstrode, what's the password?"

"Gragonsheeecth," she mumbles between mouthfuls.

"Pardon?"

Millicent gulps down her soup, "Dragon's Teeth."

I get up and leave.

S.S – S.S – S.S – S.S – S.S

So many years must have passed and yet the sixth-year boys' dormitory looked almost exactly the same. Same green and silver velvet quilts and bed-hangings, same mahogany furnishings and I even have the same bed – the one by the door.

There was a note on it.

Here is your timetable. Unless you wish for a change from what you studied before, everything should be correct. Uniform and robes are in the trunk. The books under the bed are from me. I know you will make use of them.

P.S – The space underneath the bed has been warded against others.

Professor S. Snape

I lean down and poke my head under the bead, my hair flopping onto the floor. There were many books under there, reaching out a hand, I pick one at random.

'Deconstructing the Dark Arts,' by Sophia Mortlock, not a book a sixth-year ought to be reading, I flip through it. It had a lot of information about inventing your own curses and what constitutes a "dark" jinx.

"You're the guy who appeared in the cauldron!" I look up to see a tall, black boy with large, slanted eyes.

"Indeed."

"How did you do it?" the boy demands impatiently.

I have finished with acceding to the demands of other students. The professor had informed me that I know much more than probably any other student in Hogwarts. The work standard has gone down over the years, apparently.

"Oh, it's quite simple, you see," I say silkily, "I did it by magic."

The boy looks furious for a moment and I reach for my wand, but then he chuckles and gives me a tight smile.

"Suppose I shouldn't have expected an answer, really. I'm Blaise Zabini. Are you related to Professor Snape?"

"I'm his son."

The boy whistles and gives me a grin that could only be described as impish.

"Right – inherited his personality?"

"Why, of course, Mr Zabini."

At that moment the door flies open and a blond boy stalks into the room, followed by two lumpen thugs who make me think of Crabbe and Goyle. The blond could only be Draco Malfoy, of whom the professor and I had spoken.

"Malfoy, this is Snape, our new room-mate."

Malfoy stares at me. He really does look extraordinarily like his father.

"Snape?" he stared at me in confusion.

I let Zabini unload his modicum of information. "His son, apparently,"

Malfoy gives me something between a curious gaze and a leer. "So, you managed to apparate inside Hogwarts?" there was a hard edge to the question. His interrogation technique is pathetic.

"If I did," I say smoothly, "I would hardly tell anyone, would I?"

Malfoy gives me a sullen look. "If someone made it worth your while…?"

I give him a cold stare. "Knowledge is power, and that is something I prefer to keep to myself."

"Oh the Gryffindors are going to love you!" Zabini laughs.

This reanimates Malfoy. "You're right Zabini, just wait until Pot-head sees he had two Snapes to contend with!"

"Pot-head?" I venture.

"His nickname for the illustrious Harry Potter," Zabini explains with mock-solemnity, "Chosen One and Saviour of Mankind."

I raise an eyebrow. If he's anything like his father he's probably as bad as Malfoy seems to think. Still, if I can make life hard for James's son…

Everyone began to get ready for bed, the others pestering me with questions about my mother, her lineage, et cetera. I fed them the same story I'd told Bulstrode and McGonagall.

Professor Snape had provided me with some basic, black, cotton pyjamas and a forest green dressing-gown that looks quite old, I suppose it belonged to him – well, technically it still does.

I draw my bed-curtains and ignoring the other sounds – Crabbe and Goyle (amazing, I know!) are whispering to each other, whatever can they have to say that's so important? – I try to go to sleep.

As I stare at the green and silver canopy I hope that this is not some fantastic dream that will end as I let myself sink into slumber. This is quite real, I reassure myself. Quite real…

I have finally found someone who understands. I've found myself.

S.S – S.S – S.S – S.S – S.S

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