DISCLAIMER:

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books,

Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Sam caressed the snake's head with his finger listening to the reptilian words it spoke.

"Food? You smell of food? Feed me. Feed me now before I bite you!"

Sam shook his head. Doesn't everyone want to be an animal at some point in his or her lives? To eat sleep, dream… mate. Sam had wanted to curl up like a cat on a warm window and dream away his days. He could see why his father would be attracted by the option, to be a pet, to be someone else's responsible and have none of your own.  But life – his life was more complicated than that, but how to convince Snape, how to get the man to re-emerge from the snakeskin? 

From everything Sam had heard Severus Snape was a complete bastard, absolutely brilliant in potions, wasted in his job at Hogwarts, but a bastard in that cunning Slytherin way. They had something in common then, Sam conceded. He knew 'clever', he had learnt early on that being too clever for his own good was a very dangerous thing to be. He played his intellect down shifting the goal posts, changing the ground under people's feet to risk it all and not get caught.

Instinctively Sam knew that an appeal to his father's sentiments would be pointless. After his mother's death Filch had told him much of his father. He thought he knew the man; Severus Snape would not care a jot if he knocked up a student that was her problem not his. He had better things to do. Severus Snape mentioned things he heard over torture as easily as most shared gossip over high tea, he was a Death Eater, a turncoat who killed his friends, a man with no heart... and that wizard, that man - this snake - was his father.

If he had to do this, Sam thought. He was going to do it properly. He may not exist in the next five minutes, but his life was forfeit in the future anyway. He knew clever, so he was clever. He decided he had to out play the player and he was going to accomplidh it very well indeed. He drew out of himself the things of the snake he remembered in his youth, the things a snake would know, would find intriguing and he posed a question that even the most humble snake could not resist...

"I am you."

"You are me?" The snake hissed, his voice deep, threatening and whispering like distant thunder. He nudged Sam's finger with its head in derision. "You smell like me, you taste like me, but you don't look like me."

"You've been a snake too long, Severus Snape. If you don't believe me, allow us to transform you back into the man?"

The snake looked at Sam with a frank interest. "You are me?" It repeated, its head bobbing. "You are a young man, I am a snake. How can you be me?"

"Listen to the voice inside, deep down inside." Sam coaxed the creature. "What is it saying to you?"

"I'm hungry."

"Deeper." Sam pressed.

The snake moved away and thrashed about as it thought, finally it reared up and asked, "I am a man?"

Sam nodded. "Yes." The boy felt a surge of triumph, appeal to the ego of an arrogant man and you have him. "A very strong man and a powerful wizard."

"And you are me?"

Sam laughed, "You cannot see clearly with those snake eyes or think with that tiny reptilian brain, trust your nose Snape, you always used to."

Snape sank down and lay on the tabletop. "I am tired, my blood freezes in my veins."

"Snakes are primitive creatures."

"You do not like me, I can smell it on you. Why should I trust you?"

"You can smell your own distaste at your condition. You are a man, Severus Snape. You were Potions Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Be that person again."

"Why should I? I like being a snake, there's comfort in the crunch of mice bones in my gizzard."

Sam was stumped. It was like talking to a petulant child. He struggled to think of an answer, then sputtered out the truth. "Because we need you!"

Wrong thing to say, Sam saw the snake withdraw before he could retract the sloppy statement. "Okay," he breathed. "Wait! I will tell you the truth. I am from the future!"

The tone of his voice stopped Snape's retreat. Sam should have realised that time has no meaning for reptiles. They lived by seasons and urges; they measured their life in meals and matings.

Damn! He cursed at his own stupidity. Why had he said that? It was clumsy and inept. Was it was because it was the truth? He felt a wave of self-disgust crash over him. No. He did not need his father! It was all the stories of his parent's abilities that forced those words from his mouth. He did not need them, whereas his world desperately did. Yes, he felt he anxiety diminish; he was doing this for the magical world.

"Where is my mate, her scent is fading."

"She's human now, just as you should be." He shot back

"Human?" The black adder rose up and peered about the room. "I am alone?"

"Even more alone than you realise." Sam replied.

In his time Voldemort may have died at Potter's hands, but a greater evil had risen in his place, a prion disease carried on an owl's claw. Only those with magic in their veins succumbed to it and like a Dementors kiss were destroyed from within.

Sam and his siblings were lucky, his mother kept them out of the populated areas, but the insidious disease crept over the land raining down death and madness on all it touched. The Muggle world was no escape the disease invaded everywhere. By the time he and his brothers and sister were four Britain's wizarding population was firmly in its grip. It left the country an isolated pocket of seething contamination, green fields and bobbing flowers before empty cottages their doors painted with angry red crosses. No one could get in and no one could get out, no one could escape the plague. People did what they could. Dumbledore did what he could, but it was never enough. The science was not fast enough and the prion mutated. Dumbledore was a misguided fool! The old man was in his dotage, he withdrew under the pressure of a militarised Ministry, became subservient to the factions that took hold and quietly sat back as society crumbled about them.

They needed to fight back or there would be no one left to stand, to leave a mark, to be magic, they needed the Muggles, they needed their art. Filch understood, for all his thick leather boots and belt, he knew the score. Get it sorted Dumbledore! He heard his father's drunken roar. One dangerous thing knows another. Go to the Muggle's, the Dark Arts, do whatever it takes to save our world!

"You are me?"

"Yes." Sam sighed. Was his father so far gone he would be trapped in this circular argument with him forever? "I am you."

A silence followed, Sam shifted on his feet and wiped his brow. This was a waste of time and he had so little of it left! How could he tell the people here that they would suffer in the future? He could not, he mist do this alone. Where was his mother? He wanted to speak to her? Damn, the time was slipping by.

Sam had told the truth about his past, in so far that his mother succumbed to the prion disease and Hogwarts was less a school than a quarantine station. He glanced down the ward to where Pomfrey anxiously fiddled with her wand. He saw Potter nudge Draco Malfoy forward and heard Draco's half-hearted protest. He shook his head at them. "Not yet."

"If you are me…?" Snape asked, "Can you prove it?"

"Pardon?" Sam straightened up and waved for Potter, Pomfrey and Malfoy to approach. Got you!  He knelt down and stared into the small snakes faceted eyes. "Yes I can prove it, but as I said before snakes are primitive creatures. I can only show you the proof –" he paused a raised his index finger watching as the small snake's head bobbed as he waved it. "Irrefutable proof –" Snape was mesmerised, "if - you are human."

"We smell the same, taste them same…" Snape cocked his head to one side, his gaze locked on the boy's finger, his tongue darting in and out. Finally he softly offered up a hiss,  "Will you change me back to a snake when you have shown me?"

Sam did not even blink. "Of course," He smiled up at Pomfrey. "You have my word on it." He nodded at Draco, "Do it now!"

He stepped back quickly as Malfoy descended with raised his wand.

Harry nodded as Sam visibly relaxed, "Quite the snake charmer Mr Filch."

"Yes." Sam gave the shorter boy a sad smile, "I always thought that was my moth-"

Sam never finished his sentence. He was engulfed in an abrupt expanding ball of blue light. Harry and Draco staggered back and Madam Pomfrey scuttled away as the light grew in the air about them, sending out sizzling bolts of energy between the tabletop and where they stood. It pulsed and surged and the noise rattled the windows and jars and teeth in their head. As soon as it appeared it vanished and with it Sam..

"Ohhh…" A very mussed up Professor Snape was climbing to his hands and knees on top of the workbench. He got caught up on the sleeve of his robes, rolled over and off the workbench to land on the hard infirmary floor with a bone-cracking crunch. "Owww!" He bellowed, a moment later he was on his feet swaying on his widely spaced feet and holding his bowed head in his hands. "Merlin's teeth!" He swore through gritted teeth.

"You must have banged your head." Draco said.

Harry looked at the Potion's Master and then at the spot where his son had stood a few moments before. There was nothing left of the boy, not a footprint, not a speck of dust. Harry's heart plummeted; who would have thought Sam would have sacrificed himself for his Dad? A sense of déjà vu mixed with grief stuffed up his throat. He softly choked out something he had said to Sam when he first met him, his voice growing louder as he looked at Snape. "I would go see Madam Pomfrey if I were you."

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tbc