Chapter 2

The Dementors Sucked Out My World


"Who is he, Scorpius?" Draco asked his son, quietly, as McGonagall trotted over to the newcomer with Harry Potter to the rescue, of course. All Draco knew was that the boy had known his name and his son, and that was curious enough to make him walk over to where Minerva had the boy on his back, still blacked out.

"I don't know, father. He yelled my name and jumped in the lake after me and Professor Snape's doe, the actual Severus Snape, sir! He, his Patronus…is a big dragon," Scorpius said, jutting his chin toward the form laying on the bank. Clearly, Scorpius was suitably impressed. By Draco's nod to himself, he was impressed as well. The boy could not be any older than Scorpius or Albus, perhaps maybe a bit younger.

"Is he from the past?" Harry asked the Headmistress, worried that there was some other blip in time that the boys had caused that had yet to reveal itself.

Scorpius chimed in, "Erm, no, sir, sideways I think."

"Mr. Malfoy, you've taken a whole person out of their world and brought them into ours, I think that's quite enough from you for the time being!" Minerva snipped.

"He's awake, Headmistress, just thought you should know," Draco drawled, although the boy's eyes were still closed. His father had taught him that, always listen before you open your eyes.

Eyes did indeed flutter open soon afterward. Clearly, he was groggy.

"We should carry him up to the school," the Headmistress said.

Ginny was handling Albus, so Harry stepped forward, ready for the task, but as soon as he laid a hand on the boy, he was up, falling over, up again and backpedaling, wand out.

"W-Where am I?!" he demanded, shakily.

"Hogwarts, dear, we're not going to hurt you," Minerva said, and then snapped, "Potter, put that away for goodness sakes."

Sheepishly, Harry put his wand away.


Hogwarts? The boy thought.

This was not Hogwarts.

Had they gotten him? Was this some sort of hallucinogenic torture? He looked around and went to back up another step as they stepped toward him again, and he stepped right back into the water with his left foot. It splashed as he pulled it back out, trying to maintain his composure, soaking wet, nauseated, light-headed, and wholly confused.

"W-who are you?"

"I'm the headmistress, dear, Professor McGonagall."

"…" the boy stared. You're dead…

For a moment he thought perhaps he was in the past, but then the man who had gone to carry him said, "And I'm Harry, Harry Potter." Far, far too old to be THE Harry Potter.

"H-harry Potter? But y-y-you, your dead!" Dead, we're all dead? His mind searched frantically for some logic in an entirely disorienting scenario.

"Erm," Harry looked down at himself, blinking. "Happily not?"

"You seem to have traveled with a Time-Turner, dear. Let us help you, you're hurt," the headmistress said. "We will all figure this out together. These other boys have brought you back with them somehow." She had a sneaking suspicion there was a familiarity in the lithe boy with waves of black hair. She was the only one of the group other than perhaps Harry, that had seen Severus as a boy, in his memories. This boy was a…more well-groomed look-alike with less harsh features, and it was pulling at her mind if not quite there yet.

"What's your name, son?" this Harry Potter asked, gently.

He shook his head. No, he was not telling anyone anything until they told him more. His wand shook in his hand. He tried to breathe through his nose, willing tears away with every fiber of his being. He had to make sure this was not some trick. He could feign shock if need be. Even for the hellish world he had come from, he had never been this frightened, and now it was time to prove he could control it enough to protect himself. Without his parents. Either of his parents. He could not let himself think of the screaming. Not the screaming. Not the screaming.

Trying not to think about that made him totally aware of the fast, hard, thump-thumping of his heart.

Of all the scenarios he had ever agonized over, this was probably the one he feared the most: being alone. Dying had long ago lost the ability to scare him. He had lived every day knowing the reality of it maybe being his last. The sky might be blue, these people might seem nice, but the boy did not understand safe. Safe was not an actual thing in his world, not ever, not once.


They walked up to the school, their time-turned newcomer moving slower than the rest but refusing anyone to come near him to help. This stoic child who looked ready to choke himself to death before allowing tears or showing any weakness was definitely some sort of progeny of her former colleague. Minerva was sure of it. She had seen enough children of former students to pick them out. He was even hiding the fact that he was gripping his wand with terror inside the folds of his robes. The schoolboy version of Professor Snape had done that same thing, mostly before hexing the dickens out of anyone who tried to tease him.

She had her own many regrets about Severus. It prickled and left a heat behind her nose. She might have given in to it were it not for the two imbeciles walking with their parents in front of her who had created this mess and this mystery Slytherin from the Dark times.

"You don't have to talk," she assured him. Just because he was too scared to say anything much did not mean silence helped. He was still just a boy. A boy who did not seem to know what was going on, the way he kept looking this way and that.

Minerva left him with house elves getting him tea and sandwiches. As if that could possibly make it better, but she was not sure what else to do whilst they dealt with Potter and Malfoy. If she had known about the dementors, she might have known to get the boy some chocolate.

However did Albus do it! Students messing with time, bringing back students of times they have both created and annihilated! Good Heavens. I'd give Hermione Granger and Harry Potter a bit of my mind. I might let Draco Malfoy have both of them! Of all the things, young Mr. Malfoy should have had more sense!


Still holding his wand, which he had never put away, he pulled his legs against him in the corner of the armchair he was sitting in. His wet hair had turned into a wavy black mess, falling below his shoulders. He'd the presence of mind to dry his clothes and robe but not his hair, which had dried in a haphazard manner.

Once some of the dementor sickness had worn off, he decided this was not a hallucination, nor some trick. Not that what was happening was any better than either of those things.

Wholly alone in every sense, now that the reality of a Time-Turner set in, he let the tears come out quietly, his heart banging away in his chest in a way that made him feel nauseated and light-headed again. He did not know what safe was, having never been safe before, and the absence of his parents, now and forever, was frightening even for him. It did not matter if the nice, old witch told him he was safe.

The headmistress entered some half an hour later, finding her newcomer in that exact same position.

"Please tell me your name, dear?" she asked him, sitting down in the chair across from him. Slowly, she reached to take his wand from him; from experience she knew what wild magic a child could create in certain circumstances.

"Is…is He still here in this time?" He pulled it away from her, a look in his eye that made her abandon that effort. He was not giving his wand up.

"He?" she repeated. Did he mean?

"T-the Dark Lord?" he whispered it with a fearful reverence. That was the one thing he truly needed to know before he said another word.

She frowned and let out a firm, "No."

"No?" He looked at her from behind tendrils of thick, black waves, right in the eyes, clearly not quite able to believe it, fathom it.

She let out a breath when he seemed to relax at the lack of Voldemort in their world. "Harry Potter, who you met earlier, vanquished him many years ago. Neither he nor any of his followers can harm you. Now then, what is your name?" She reached out to touch his shoulder, with a glare at the appendage, he let her.

He seemed to breathe a bit easier now that he knew the Dark Lord was no threat here. "I…I…I go by S-Sev-Severus, my middle name…"

She mustered a smile for the boy. Her intuition had been correct, "Your father…is Severus Snape?"

He nodded, "Y-yes, erm, Professor, Is he…is he…is he alive in this time?" He gulped, trying to steady his voice. He wanted to be stronger than this, but he had never been prepared for this.

Her sad look was the only answer he needed and despite the strength with which she could tell he tightened his jaw, two tears struggled from the corners of his eyes.

To the headmistress, the poor thing looked destroyed and utterly fighting not to let it show.

"You k-knew, k-knew him, h-headmistress?" This was quite a lot to take in, even for a child who had been learning magic from his father, in absolute necessity, for as long he could remember. All sorts of magic.

"Yes, we worked together for well over a decade, and I was also a teacher when he was a student here. You are very lucky to have a father who would bear all sorts of hells to protect a child. I am sure you are very strong and very brave like him." She wished to keep him talking, getting it out. She gave his shoulder a squeeze. Another tear rolled out of the boy. She realized one of her own followed in sympathy.

"The dementors…He…the screaming…and mum."

This poor, poor boy! "Wh-," the Headmistress began but was interrupted before finishing by the appearance of the Minister for Magic walking through the open door after knocking this time.

Persons traveling across time, Hogwarts children from other worlds of not, surely involved the former Gryffindor, who seemed quite tired of all the time ripples by this point. Served her right for her carelessness with the time-turner!

"Minister," she said, with a curt nod, more for the boy's benefit, so he would know who she was.

Sitting up more, with a gaping look of disbelief, the boy exclaimed, "Mum?!" His lips parted. She looked different. Deep down he knew it was too good to be true, that it wasn't true, that it could not be true. She was dead. Minister? Minster for Magic?!

"Mum?" Hermione echoed, looking with confusion from the time-turning boy to her former Head of House.

"Y-you…you d-don't remember me?" he stuttered. At this point, he actually dropped his wand, which clattered to the floor.

His entire world had truly just been shattered, everything he knew and loved utterly destroyed, like a dementor had attacked his entire existence, tearing it apart, kissing it into oblivion, and then leaving him alone in this bizarre place. "Y-your not my….." He could not help but breathe in great, gulping bursts while trying to hold in all the noise of it, still trying to deny that he was truly going to start sobbing. In front of people. In front of strangers, even if one looked like his mum.

He wanted to run and wrap his arms around her and couldn't.

"Oh dear," McGonagall uttered, looking between the boy and Hermione Granger-Weasley. Mum?! He had the generousness of her lips and cheeks, the largeness of her eyes, the thickness of her hair, all meshed with the intense charcoal darkness of Severus' eyes and longer face, framed with wavy black tendrils whose color definitely came from his father. "Oh…my…word." Hermione Granger and Severus Snape? Had a child?

All he wanted was his mum, his mum who was right there, or his dad, who he knew he'd never see again. It was a worse torture than staying behind with his father! Than death. He cried into the sleeve of his robe, finally not caring what anyone thought. They'd have hurt him by now if they were going to, so it did not matter if he showed precisely how weak he felt in that moment. Sorry Dad…

Just then, as empty as it was, Severus wished that his father had kept his promise*. More hot tears stung his eyes as he furiously wiped them behind the sleeve of his robes. He just wanted to be alone.

"Hermione, dear…in this world Scorpius just came back from Severus, yourself, and Ron held off the dementors long enough to allow Scorpius to escape with the time-turner to fix time…" She repeated of the blond boy's story.

"Yes, yes," the younger one said, eager to fill in these gaping holes.

The headmistress provided the missing bit the younger girl was not fully processing, "Severus is his father." She wrung her hands together, "And you…you're apparently his mother. And there's no back to send him to…"

Hermione gaped at the boy.


A/N – Thanks for the reviews! The next few chapters are already written, so the faster I get some feedback and reviews, the faster I'll post up more!

* I'm planning to reveal the promise in a flashback, but I think some savvy readers might be able to guess what that sad promise was based on the first chapter! Take your best guess in a review :D