A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews - and your patience! We've got a new family computer - which we can actually play games on. So you can guess what happened! Hope you all had good holidays - I'll try and answer a few Q's.

RonandChicken: I'm sorry - the mud will clear soon. In fact I have a feeling this photograph might be crucial to the mud clearing process. ;-)

Xikum: Thankyou for your reviews. Ah, you ask so much, but what could I say that wouldn't give my mad little fic's plot away? Not much!

, : "13R raises an inquisitive eyebrow" Have I ever said that this was a Snape-is-Harry's-father fic?

Aurumlupi: Ooh, pour me one please! ;-)

Prowling Wolf: Oops - well spotted! Snape does call Potter, Harry. Maybe I should rephrase, that he wouldn't use it in a non-mocking way? (Whatever that would be for Snape?!)

Zymurgy: "13R looks flattered" Thank you! I'm glad you like this story - and thanks for your patience!

Marller: Thanks! Here's your chapter!

____________________________________________________________________________ _________

Oh, Harry! Ha, ha, ha - you should see this man in here! I've never thought about it, but do you reckon - the way wizards use wands, its actually really funny, isn't it Harry? Ha, ha! Ginny? Look, if I wave it like this, I can make pretty little sparks. Look Ginny!

Harry strained his ears to try and listen through the wall. He could hear Ron talking to Ginny on the other side of it.

"Ron!" he called. "Ron? Can you hear me? Look, the door's locked. I can't get through it. Is there a key on the other side of it?"

There was a slight pause, and then Ginny's voice came muffled through the wall.. "Harry? Is that you? Oh, we were worried you had got lost in the forest! Listen, you have to go and get Dumbledore - there's something really important he has to know!"

Harry looked around him. He was shut in a large circular chamber, lit by flaming blue torches. There were many, many doors, all the same. Harry looked around, feeling unease tighten his throat. The sound of Ron's laugh ran out again. He sounded so young, innocent.

He called back. "Ginny? Ginny, I'm not sure if I can get Dumbledore, or if I can, it might be a while as I don't know which door I need to go through."

Ron spoke up then. He sounded rally excited about something. "Is that you Harry? Hey mate - get Dumbledore. You need to get Dumbledore quick!"

Harry looked behind him nervously, his darting eyes showing the beginning of panic. "Ron, I can't - the doors. There are too many.

"Try!"

Hurriedly, Harry began to try each door in turn. The torches flickered eerily. Rattle rattle. Rattle rattle. Rattle rattle. He tried door, after door, after door, and every one was locked. And still there were more.

Glancing around, Harry suddenly realised what he had done. How many doors had he tried? Where were Ron and Ginny? Which wall were they behind? He had no idea anymore.

"Ron! Ginny!"

He strained his ears to silence.

"RON! GINNY!"

Harry cursed himself for being so stupid. Running back the way he came, he paused briefly at every wall to call their names. But there was only more silence to greet him.

"Harry?"

"Ginny! Oh, thank Merlin!"

The voice snorted contemptuously from behind the wall. "No - it isn't Ginny. I would have thought you knew my voice by now!"

Harry realised his mistake. "Oh, sorry Hermione! Listen, I was just talking to Ron and Ginny and I need to get Dumbledore. But I can't find the door, and now I've lost them, and I have to find them."

"What on earth do you mean?" Hermione sounded incredulous. "Ron and Ginny are in Gryffindor Tower, how can they be in here as well? That doesn't make sense."

Harry was bewildered. "But I was just speaking to them just now!" he cried. "I have to get Dumbledore, and have to find them too!"

Harry could just hear the muffled voice sigh from behind the wall. "Oh, Harry. You know you really must stop all this saving people. Don't you think it's getting a bit annoying?"

"But they might be in danger!" he spluttered. "I can't leave them!"

His voice sounded small and weak in the great room. It reminded him a bit of Hogwart's dungeons -

"Why do you need to get Dumbledore?" snorted a familiar voice from his side just then, making him jump. "Do you think we can't manage a few greasy wizards on our own?"

Harry swang round to a playful grin. "Sirius!" he called out in surprise. "Where have you been?"

"Oh, just hanging around, not doing much" came the lazy reply. "It's really boring here, but I've been trying out a few hexes here, a few hexes there - "

Harry was excited, yet he felt himself grow nervous as he watched Sirius slouch cockily against a door. "Hexes? What sort of hexes?"

Sirius looked miffed. 'What do you mean 'What sort of hexes?' Hexy hexes! Hilarious hexes! Hexes that'll make you piss yourself laughing! Bloody hell James, what have I told you about taking life so seriously?"

Harry started, surprised at being addressed with his father's name. And then he looked closer at his Godfather, and noticed that he looked younger. Much younger -

"I didn't mean - er - I mean I don't fancy doing that right now," he stuttered. "Er - can't we do something else?"

Teenage Sirius grinned hungrily. "Okay. Reckon we should have another go at cracking the security spells on the girls' dorms again? We could fool Filch again, or maybe - if we're really, really sly, slip one of those fireworks in Ol' Gonnygall's tea?"

Harry felt himself groan inwardly. He didn't really want to do any of it - what he really fancied was having a game of Quidditch, but he was afraid he might upset Sirius if he said no. And then there was Ginny and Ron to find, and all those doors -

Sirius was watching him intently, with eyes that suggested mischief was not far away. "Well James?"

Harry was just about to retort that he wasn't James, but then -

WHACK!

In a split second the dark chamber, dream and all was gone, and everywhere was suddenly dazzingly bright.

At first Harry didn't register where he was, what time it was, or even how old he was. All he felt was the sudden and horrible surprise of being smacked roughly round the head. And then, the next thing was the sound of a rather threatening teenage male's voice bellowing at him.

"Who the fuck are you? Get out!"

On impulse Harry shot back away from the shouting, and consequently hit the back of his head against the wash basin with a dull bonging sound.

"Ahh!"

His eyes still heavy with sleep, Harry hurriedly rubbed them with one hand and the back of his sore head with the other. After a few seconds his vision cleared, and he managed to make out a stocky, large-bellied person standing over him, dressed only in a very baggy pair of Homer Simpson boxer shorts.

"MUUUUMM!"

In an instant Harry had recognised the half-broken voice. But it took him another few seconds to recall what question Dudley had asked him, and several more after that to grasp exactly WHY he had been asked it.

Full consciousness had never hit him with such raw horror. Paling noticeably, Harry stared weakly back at his cousin.

"I - er - I -"

His cousin's fists were slightly raised, his piggy eyes narrowing with suspicion. "I wanna know who the fuck you are, right now, and if you don't fucking say - I'll punch it out of you! I fucking swear!" he growled.

At this point Dudley turned round again to bellow, "OY - MUUUMM! Come here quick! MUUUM!"

Cold, and weak, with a smarting head, and a stiff, sore body, Harry made a clumsy attempt to get off the floor. "Dudley, please shut up and listen - for god's sake - it's me, Harry!"

Dudley's head turned slowly, his mouth hanging open, as he looked his cousin up and down at least three times with dull, hung-over eyes. "Uh?"

Harry managed to pull himself to his feet, and managed a weak smile. "I'm still Harry - just don't look like it. I - er - sort of had an accident - with my magic, you know?"

At the mention of the word, Dudley suppressed a shiver. Though he had got along with Harry a lot better the past few weeks - it had only been because Harry hadn't even mentioned the word magic - let alone bring up anything about it. For once, his freak cousin had seemed to act just like one of his school mates - wanting to hang out and stuff.

Dudley's eyes screwed up, as he scowled. But how could he have nearly forgotten what his mum had told him? Harry was still being chased by these absolute nutters of wizards, of course. And wizards could impersonate people - right - with potions?

Dudley looked the pale teen up and down once more. This kid looked like a bit of a scrote. A sly one too. If he ran away, he might get hexed much worse than a pig's tail. Dudley's eyes widened slightly; he would never forget the horror of that shot of local anaesthetic.

So - was finding out whether he could throw a punch faster than this wizard could draw a wand really his only option?

"Yeah right," he leered, cracking his knuckles in a slow, deliberate way. The guy was definitely a featherweight - couldn't be more than nine stone, surely? He'd be out in one punch!

"Yeah, you're Harry and I've got an itchy, itchy chin.."

Harry looked back worriedly. He would hardly need anything like Legilimency to know that Dudley didn't believe him. That sort of magic would be utterly wasted on people like his cousin. "Well, I'll tell you the truth then," he began awkwardly. "But first I'll give you proof who I am before -"

But he didn't get out much more; for a split second later Harry found Dudley's ham-sized fist hurtling toward him. He managed to dodge it, luckily (Thanks to years of practice) But this wasn't so lucky for Dudley, for the bulky teen had chosen to use quite a bit of upper body momentum with his right-handed uppercut. This momentum kept him going as far as the edge of the bath, where gravity toyed with him for a moment, before finally dragging him down.

"Whoa!"

Creak - Squeeek! BANG!

"Oh, bloody hell Duds!" winced Harry as he watched the stocky legs fling out sideways before falling like tree trunks, sending shampoo bottles and soaps skittering everywhere.

His cousin came to rest face down in the bath, whimpering, and what was decidedly worse, was that Homer Simpson had slipped down to his knees, exposing cellulite, tail-docked scar, and all.

"There would have been a time where I would have thought that was really funny," muttered Harry, trying not to look at his cousin's pale, pockmarked arse. "But nearly getting punched for not being yourself? No - not funny."

"Harry?"

Slightly shocked at the sound of the voice, the teenager turned to recognise the pink-clad form of his aunt in the bathroom doorway. He swallowed nervously.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia?"

Petunia pursed her lips even more tightly together and steadied herself against the door frame. There was a slight sound of rustling paper; Harry looked down to his aunt's quivering hands and saw she was clutching several pieces of unrolled parchment.

Petunia was pale, her voice seeming faint and a little distant, as if she was not quite awake. "So it is true after all then?" she whispered. "As it says. I'd know her handwriting anywhere. And this -"

Harry put two and two together, and instantly made a grab for the scroll.

His fingers only managed to brush the edge however, before another thin hand snaked its way around Petunia and whipped it away from them.

Petunia shuddered visibly but didn't turn around as a silky voice brushed past her ear.

"Yes, Mrs Dursley. Unfortunately - quite true."

Harry went rigid, and felt his heart dive as Snape's head appeared over his aunt's shoulder. The last person he wanted to see, Harry chose to stare at the wall instead.

It was then that Petunia recognised the toes poking over the edge of the bath as her sons.

"Popsikins!" she shrieked. "What have you done to him, you horrible child?"

Snape's sneer of disdain seemed to twitch with something akin to amusement as the kid in the bath whimpered out a reply. (Or croak, really - considering it was hard to whimper with your voice breaking.)

"Mummy?"

"It's okay my love, Mummy's here!" Snape shifted his glare to Harry and saw that the boy had barely enough time to mark the swift change of his aunt's expression from fear to vicious determination, before he was roughly shoved out of the way by her aroused maternal instincts. With surprise, the professor also noted the teenager's reaction to this treatment.

Harry blinked as his aunt knocked into him, yet his eyes barely flickered away from the wall. Instead he steadied himself, bit his lip and shrugged nonchalantly.

Snape raised an eyebrow; did the boy not care how his aunt had just treated him? And had the woman forgotten what she had just read in that damned scroll?

Dudley groaned as his mum helped him to sit up. A large red bruise was beginning to appear on his forehead. "Mum - my bloody head hurts!"

"Don't swear lovey, please. Nice public school boys shouldn't swear. Hold your head up a bit and I'll make it better," Petunia cooed, holding a flannel under the cold tap, before folding it over and applying it to her son's head.

Dudley shrank back from his mother's touch and growled. "Nooo, it's too cold! Make it warmer."

"Hush sweetie, I'm sorry, Mummy didn't mean it," Petunia turned on the hot tap, and ran the cloth under it, before lovingly dabbing it back on her son's head - seeming to completely forget about what she had just been holding in her hand moments before.

Meanwhile, Dudley's hungover, drug-addled, punch-drunk brain had finally recalled the reason why he was sat in the bath with a bump on his head. He opened his eyes groggily. "Mum - has that teenager gone?"

"What teenager, dear?" was his mother's careless response.

Dudley turned his head to look around her, his eyes growing wide. "Watch out Mum - he's behind you! And there's another one - look!"

Petunia frowned, before casting a look behind her. "Who? The teenager?" She threw an unpleasant scowl at Harry. "Don't be silly, dear - there's only your cousin."

Dudley squinted at the teenager. The lad was as scruffy as his cousin used to be - but no bloody way was he Harry! "Have you gone bloody mad, Mum? That ain't Harry! That's the horrible slimy shit who made me fall in the bath!"

Petunia's lips went white. "Dudley Andrew Dursley! What have I told you about swearing? And don't say that to your cousin, when you know I've told you this house is being watched!"

Harry saw Dudley's mouth open in a fishlike way, before closing again. He blinked - it didn't make sense, he could still see Snape out of the corner of his eye. Why couldn't Aunt Petunia?

His aunt was still twittering on. "And don't make me worry, you tell me if you want me to call the doctor out. And make sure you tell Mummy if you start feeling tired, or sick. Oh, and promise me you won't go in the living room - there's the gas man in fixing the fire, and he doesn't need a crowd."

The two teenagers stared at each other for a moment totally confused, before staring at the thin dark shadow of a sultry wizard, still sneering in the doorway.

They both saw him - he was there, their expressions confirmed it.

Snape narrowed his eyes at Dudley before tutting. "Haven't you heard of Electa apparentis Potter? Dear, dear, it must be the result of years of sub- standard defence teaching. And clearly those extra "Defence classes" can't have been that effective - "

Harry frowned. It was weird - Snape was obviously talking to him, but now was he refusing to even look in his direction?

"Seeing as you will probably be too lazy to bother looking it up, Electa apparentis means select exposure."

Snape trailed off, gritting his teeth. It just wasn't the same making fun of the boy since those Occlumency lessons. And now this bloody thing had to appear out of nowhere - he looked down at the scroll he was holding with a particularly ugly expression - well, ignorance about this brat's case would have been bliss indeed! Turning with a dismissive swish of robes, Snape swept down the stairs.

A few moments later Harry winced as he heard the living room door slam, probably due to magical, rather than physical force.

"Harry!" said his Aunt suddenly. "Stop standing there and help me get your cousin out of the bath! Please," she added quickly.

Harry saw Dudley was giving him a really suspicious eye as he edged forward. As he helped Dudley up, Harry whispered quietly, "I swear to you it's me - Harry. Could anyone else be so good at dodging your punches?"

Dudley frowned, yet said nothing.

Petunia fixed a stern eye on Harry. "And I want you to watch Dudley for concussion. If he as much as looks faint I want you to call for me immediately!"

"Yes, Aunt Petunia."

Once they were out of her sight, Dudley's demeanour changed.

"Georroff me," he growled, throwing himself on the bed, before glaring up at Harry. "What the hell have you done to yourself, freak?"

"I haven't done anything. It's what other people have done to me that's the problem!"

"So what the hell is going on then? Magic?"

Harry sighed bitterly. "I know what magic's going on. It's the rest I want to know about! But Snape's got my bloody scroll!"

Dudley's eyes widened slightly. "Who?"

"Snape."

"Snape?"

"Yes." Harry swore he could almost hear his cousin's brain straining with the effort.

Dudley squinted. "You mean that goth-hag bloke who just went downstairs?"

"Ye-es. He's a professor at my school."

"A wizard teacher?" Dudley went slightly pale, before shaking his head. "Fuck."

Harry nodded. He couldn't agree more.

Dudley gave a weak smile. "He looks even more mental than my chemistry teacher. And that's bad."

Harry's expression darkened. "You have no idea."

"Twisted?"

"Just a bit."

There was a slight pause, wherein they could hear Petunia making her way downstairs. Harry frowned; what had Snape done to her? She had managed to get hold of the scroll and read it, yet she didn't seem too shocked. But wait a moment - what was that she had said? "So it is true after all?"

Harry frowned. Did that mean she already knew? How? Who? What in Merlin's frigging -

Harry suddenly became aware that Dudley was staring at him intently. "You know," he said his little eyes narrowing. "I wasn't too sure, but when you screw up your face like that you look sort of like -"

"No - Don't say it!" shot in Harry, screwing up his face even more. (Which only made it worse.)

" - a picture of some guy I saw in the loft once."

That wasn't what he thought he was going to hear. Harry's eyes grew wide as saucers.

"W-w-what?!"

Dudley scowled. "Yeah - in some shoebox. But who cares about that old stuff? I was looking for my stash this morning. Where is it?"

But Harry was already pulling down the loft ladder. Now his uncle was out of the house there was nobody who could stop him from going up there.

"Harry - my stash!" called Dudley up into the dark hole of a hatch.

There was a muffled sound of boxes being moved around, before a faint voice floated down from above.

"It's downstairs. Don't worry - I'll get it back for you."

For once, Dudley's brain worked faster than his mouth; as soon as he began to exclaim,"What do you mean get it back?" he knew the answer would be -

"Snape. I'll say it's yours - which isn't a lie, is it? But I have to do this first."

"Why - you, utter, utter, nob!" Dudley stood fuming as Harry pulled up the loft ladder. He knew from past experience he couldn't fit through the small hatch.

"Whatever Dudley."