For those of you who care to know, this is Snape's stuck in Potter's body POV
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Hermione kept watch under Potter's Invisibility Cloak while I obtained the ingredients I needed to test Potter's lineage. The Severus in this world did indeed use the same type of protections. I tell him all the time he needs to come up with more clever passwords. I mean, its so easy to guess that 'The Marauders should burn in Hell for all eternity' is his password. Everyone knows he hates the Marauders, dead or alive. Anyway, I got the ingredients without a problem and Hermione and I whisked up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Ron met us there with a cauldron and a few other ingredients that I hadn't needed to steal.
As I brewed away, Hermione and Ron told me all about being Potter. I don't mean to offend, but he's pathetic. He never does anything to help himself, it's always for others. In short, he's a Gryffindor, through and through. It'll be easy, playing him. I just have to be brave, humble, and good at Quidditch. The whole bad at Potions thing isn't gonna work for me. I'm going to have to plan ahead how to ruin random potions.
The potion wasn't a particularly difficult one, but it called for my least favorite ingredient, blood. Blood is cool when it's somebody else's. I don't like cutting myself. Well actually I do, but that's why I don't like putting my blood in a potion. I want to live, but it fascinates me. The pain. The fact that it's so red. I picked up the knife and turned to Hermione. I offered her the object, hilt first.
"You do it." She looked at me like I was crazy. She might have a point there.
"I don't want to hurt you," she protested. Ron was just standing there, clueless as usual.
"Look, Hermione, if I do it, I'm not so sure I'll be able to stop cutting myself. I had a huge problem with that before I managed to find a release. So it would be better if you kept a hold of that knife." She nodded and grabbed it. I offered her the palm of my hand. She lightly drew the blade across my flesh and I felt the metal bite into my hand. It felt good. I stared at the blood welling out of the cut before realizing I was doing it again. I tipped my hand and let the life-giving plasma drip into the cauldron. The potion hissed and bubbled as Hermione hastily bandaged my hand. A dark, smoky shadow came out of the cauldron.
"What do you wish to know?" It asked in an impersonal, sexless voice. I stepped forward.
"Who was my father?" I demanded. It looked at me.
"Why the man who slept with your mother." It seems It had a sense of humor.
"What was his name?" I rephrased.
"James Potter." I nodded grimly. I thought so. But It spoke again.
"But there is another male presence that is almost as strong in you." I didn't have to ask. I knew who that would be.
"And what is his name?" I asked for the benefit of my friends.
"Tom Riddle, although he goes by Lord Voldemort most of the time." Of course. Who was I expecting it to be? My father? Bull shit. Not in this lifetime. Here he really did hate the Marauders and James Potter really was my father. I have no tie whatsoever to Severus Snape. It's an interesting feeling. Going from one man being the person you count on most. The only man you can count on. To him being a greasy-haired git of a Potions Master. It's not a good feeling. I don't like it at all. He would say he's not here to be liked. Well then.
I knew there was no way I could get out of this without his help and I doubted that the father I knew could get Potter home without my help. I needed to pay a visit to the dear Death Eater. Or is he? In my world he was never true. Always a spy. But here? My mother and I were the reasons he became a spy. Maybe he truly is a loyal Death Eater. Only one way to find out.
"Do you require any other knowledge of yourself?" It inquired, startling me out of my contemplation. I shook my head and It and the potion simply disappeared.
"Leave," I ordered Ron and Hermione. They exchanged glances and left. I waited a minute to make sure they were gone and grabbed Potter's Cloak. It was nearing midnight when I finally made it to his rooms. I had to make a few guesses before I gave the correct password. He was sleeping peacefully. Unusual for a man who murders innocents as his after-school job. I slid the Cloak off and perched on the edge of the bed.
"Why hello, professor!" I stated jauntily in a conversation voice. Not too loud, that is. He jerked awake. He blinked owlishly a few times before his brain caught on.
"Potter! What are you doing here? How did you get here?" I do believe the man shook dust from the rafters. I smiled craftily. His smile, actually. He freaked.
"What the hell is going on?" he yelled. "Ten points," I interrupted him before he go any further.
"Now, now Professor. Think of what you are doing before you say anything else. How can you be so sure that I am Potter? How would Potter know how to get into your private rooms? Maybe I'm someone else stuck in Potter's ugly body. Someone who knows you well enough to know how to get into your rooms." He looked at me strangely, like I was something from a dream. He raised his wand and pointed it straight between my eyes.
"Get that out of my face," I protested, swatting it away. "You wouldn't hurt Potter's body, because then you'd be stuck with me forever and trust me, Professor, I'm a hell of a lot worse than Potter ever could be."
"Who are you then?" He asked. He hadn't quite gotten his usual Snape-ishness back, but he was working on it. I grinned.
"Just so you don't freak, cuz I really don't know what's going on around here, I'm from another world. An alternate universe if you will. How one tiny detail can change everything. People, events. All changed because of one thing."
"Are you going to tell what that is or are you just going to sit there and babble on and on and make me even more curious as to what's going on here?" I raised my eyebrows at him.
"If you interrupt me, it'll be even longer before you find out what's going on. And no matter how curious you are about me, it doesn't even come close to the curiosity I'm feeling as to what's going on at my home." I paused for a moment to make sure he was really listening.
"My name is Harold Maximian Snape. You are my father, Lily Evans was my mother. You and Mum decided when she got pregnant with me that it too dangerous for her and me to be connected to you. So you staged a 'scandal' that Lily was having an affair with James and was going to have his baby and you 'dumped' her and he 'married' her.
"I was born several months later and was christened Harold James Potter with Sirius Orion Black as my godfather. You told us Voldemort was after us because of that stupid damn prophecy but you and Mum decided I was still safer as the son of James Potter. Pettigrew was the Secret-Keeper.
"You didn't know about the attack. He took no one with him. You felt it when he was defeated. You came to Godric's Hollow and got me out of there. All it took was a blood test and I was declared your son. I became Harold Maximian Snape and came to live at Hogwarts with you. And that's my life in a nutshell," I concluded with a wry laugh. He looked at me appraisingly.
"What happened during your school years? What House are you in?" I stopped him before he could go on.
"I was Sorted into Slytherin, but I've turned tradition on its ears. Two of my closest friends are in Gryffindor and I'm actually engaged to be married to Hermione soon after we graduate. In my first year, Hermione, Ron, and Blaise Zabini, my very best friend and sister, helped me keep the Dark Lord from finding the Sorcerer's Stone.
"In my second year, the Chamber of Secrets was opened and Muggle-Borns kept getting Petrified. I finally ventured into the Chamber and killed the basilisk, saving Ginny Weasely, and keeping the school from being shut down.
"In my third year, Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban, and even though you hate him and all, I managed to see past the prejudices you had instilled in me to believe in his innocence.
"In my fourth year I was the fourth champion in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. The Dark Lord gained his body back that night.
"My fifth year was the most normal I ever had. No one tried to kill me, with the exception of a few Bludgers. The only problem was that you had returned to the Dark Lord, to spy for Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. And you know what happens to the children of Death Eaters. It happened to you. However the Dark Lord decided that I would live and serve him. Even with that damned prophecy. That year you were ordered to turn me against Dumbledore and make me loyal to the Dark Lord. And for all he knew, it worked.
"I joined his ranks not a week into summer. But I was not allowed to leave his side. I was to be trained as his heir, for he could not achieve immortality and he knew it. But I screwed up his ingenious plan with a knife in his back on my birthday. I inherited your sense of irony." I stopped to let him process all the information. I didn't expect theatrics or surprised looks. I wasn't disappointed.
"What do you want?" He demanded.
"I hope you're not expecting me to be your father. I'm hardly cut out," I interrupted him again. He was starting to get pissed.
"I am well aware of your after school job, Professor." That did elicit a gasp of surprise. I plunged onward.
"I need you to take me to the Dark Lord." That got a good strong reaction out of him.
"Why the hell would you want me to do that? You are the only way he's going to be defeated. The only weakness the Dark Lord has. Albus would murder me if I just turned you over to him." Bingo. That was what I needed to hear. I cast a silencing spell on him before he could rant any longer.
"Relax, that was just a test. I needed to see where your loyalties lie in this world. Glad to see you're not evil, Professor." He nodded and motioned for me to take the charm off. I shook my head and he, for lack of a better word, growled.
"I still need to drop another bombshell." He stopped growling and settled for a glare. I nervously licked my lips. There was no telling how he would react to this.
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