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. This is a parody, on which I am not making any
profit.

Authors note: OK, I lied. No Argus until next chapter. This chapter became
longer than I expected. It just kept growing so I decided to end it. After
reading it all, I realized that this chapter is, (in places) groooooooooss and
down right morbid. I hope you all aren't completely icked out!

Summery: Dudley contemplates Harry and magic. Severus makes a potion,
and thinks about some his horrific origins and (he fears) his dismal future.
Someone's suspicions are confirmed . . .

Chapter 2:

Omens of Something New

"Boy, get out of those bushes immediately. We're going back to the hotel."
Vernon Dursley shouted to his nephew.

"Yes,-don't let him squish my beautiful peony bushes!" Petunia chimed in.
The teenage legs sticking out of the bushes did not move.

"Damn you boy," Vernon raged, "listen to me." Vernon grabbed both ankles
and yanked. Bits of mulch scattered on the grass, but Harry did not move.
Vernon dropped the ankles, in disgust.

"Dudley, you carry him then!" he commanded. Dudley knelt down and
gathered Harry in his arms, and with a grunt, he managed to get himself
upright again. He carried Harry to the back seat of the family car.

At Dudley's insistence, Vernon ran through the flea-zone to lock Betsy in a
basement room with food and water. Mean while, Dudley got in beside
Harry and took a moment to determine whether his cousin had a pulse.

He did.

Dudley knew Harry was magical, and touching his wrist was a bit like
touching a unicorn.

A unicorn who had made Dudley's life miserable, that is. For as far back as
Dudley Dursley could remember, Harry had been doing special, exiting,
frightening things. Long before Harry first said 'the M-word,' Dudley had
known that his parents hated what Harry could do.

Which just made it that much worse, when Dudley couldn't do those things,
and when he secretly wished he could. To see things most people could
never see, to walk down a crowded street knowing that you have a great
secret those around you wouldn't even dream about, to never have to fear
others,-except maybe other magical people- would be unspeakable
wonderful.

Dudley lifted Harry's hand off the floor and laid it over his chest. He made
sure that the pulse or breathing hadn't stopped.

As they drove, the bright sky dropped sprinkles of rain on the windows.

Dudley was the good son, not the unwanted parasite 'leaching of the family,'
as Dudley's father might say. Dudley always tried to make Mom and Dad
happy; and yet it was Harry-Under-The Stairswho had the power, and made
Dudley wish to have it to.

Harry had been a bit scary lately. He looked different somehow; changed.
Perhaps he was about ready to have revenge for how Dudley and his family
had treated him all these years.

Dudley absently touched a tuft Harry's hair. It was definitely softer than
Dudley's own, almost like rabbit fur, and longer than it had always been.
Come to think of it, Dudley could not recall Harry ever getting his hair
trimmed. Glasses were normally adjusted periodically too, weren't they?
Dudley didn't remember his parents ever complaining about that.

Severus Snape carefully measured out fifty-seven ml. of Lake-Ness invisible
turtle shell with rock steady, spider-like hands. He did so without looking.
Instead, his black eyes stared unblinkingly at the viscous potion, which
boiled in slow motion, loud pops echoing slightly with the bursting of each
lazy bubble. With a long handled oak spoon, he steered the huge caldron
steadily in a clockwise direction; counting.

With each breath his sensitive nose assessed the potion's progress.
Complete concentration and controlled excitement had driven his senses to
an excruciating, inhuman acuteness that he would only become aware of
later, when it began to fade. For now, he thought only of the potion.

An idle corner of his mind admonished that this potion should be a task for
at least three brewers, but Severus had never been offered an assistant,
and would never consider welcoming such an uncomfortable intrusion
anyway.

Seven drops solution of dragon saliva (.01), diced cat whiskers, and sea salt.
Three drops magical bromeliad oil. The Potions Master gently turned down
the heat.

There was a crackling sound. Momentarily, tiny white lighting moved in a
writhing dance over the slightly mirrored surface of the potion.

Success at last! A thrill of pure joy shot all through him. Fifth times' the
charm, definitely. This was what Severus Snape lived for.

The concoction was a deep translucent purple. The first streak of brilliant
gold marked the circular path of his spoon. The gold quickly began to
branch out like the veins of a living creature.

Soon, after tunneling through the whole potion, the growth slowing too a
stop as each tendril met the caldron's black iron sides. It was now a dense
three dimensional net of gold, suspended in a transparent violet medium.
Severus longed to just stare in wonder or even whoop for joy, but he kept
stirring, careful to keep an even rhythm.

Finally, something worth all his effort.

Where his wooden spoon tore through the diaphanous web, it began to
grow rapidly again, so that the shimmering network becoming more and
more dense with each pass. Stirring became harder as the potion neared
complete solidification, and the Potions Master had to grasp the spoon with
both hands, shifting his weight with each turn.

His arms burned. He wondered if a normal person would have been strong
enough to continue. Fortunately, he'd had the foresight to spell the caldron
itself solidly to the floor or it would have been sliding around the room.

Now the potion's surface was a textured, glistening gold and slightly
mounded. It seemed to be pulsating a bit. He hadn't anticipated that. A
faint, pleasant smell, not unlike fresh cut grass, filled the room, neutralizing
the sharper odors of the potion's many ingredients. The substance had
attained the consistency of warm breaddough.

Reluctantly, Snape drew a long serrated knife from its oak holder and
brought the blade to rest apron the quivering gold surface.

He collected himself and set his jaw. The thing he'd created wasn't even
alive . . . exactly. Sympathetic emotional reactions were uncalled for and
entirely wasted on it. Besides, A 20 pound chunk would be utterly
impractical.

He cut.

By sliding his other hand into the cut he carefully kept the moist, elastic
substance from "Healing" the cut, and felt it squirm slightly beneath his
palm. A reflexive reaction? Afterward,

He lifted both halves and carried them to the table, one under each arm,
like a pair of cats. Once there, he created 12 equal pieces of soft gold and
slipped them into the identical flasks of nutrient potion that he'd prepared
in advance.

Perfect!

Now he could relax.

He shook out his tired arms and listened to his heart slow to normal. The
Potions Master slid into the nearest chair with a contented sigh. It worked.
It finally worked. Of course it worked. What he didn't know was why it
hadn't work before, but that hardly mattered now. If even one piece lived
there would be infinite possibilities! Snape was almost giddy with the
feeling of relief and triumph. Now that the work was safely done his hands
began to shake with pent up excitement, but exhaustion was also catching
up with him. Severus pulled his chair to the table and let his head rest in his
folded his arms.

Searing hunger woke Severus. His aching stomach seemed to be digesting
itself, but more then that; a familiar hunger burned cold in his veins,
making him shiver. The craving hummed disturbingly in the back of his
mind like something important and just barely forgotten.

He'd come to associate this extreme hunger with intense potion sessions,
particularly ones that left his senses feeling oddly dull a few hours
afterwards. Recovering from serious injury had the same effect, as did
sunlight falling on his skin. Normally, Severus only had to make a 'special
trip' to alley once a week, on Thursday, but he would have to go today. He
glanced towards the clock. Sunset would not be soon enough.

Severus turned to leave, mentally calculating how bad off he'd be on
reaching Mr. Shmied. Shmied's Potions supply shop.

At that moment, the significance of his cat nap struck home.

Peering about in chagrin, he noted the door to his empty potions classroom
was standing open. It taunted him. Severus, had never willingly slept outside
of a locked door in his life that he could recall. Though Dumbledore didn't
know it, he'd had a door with a lock as a child, if nothing else, and he'd
always used it. Severus felt belated fear and growing alarm, like writhing
worms in his stomach.

No, he remembered now, there were those long nights in the hospital wing,
usually after a bad Death Eater meeting, when he succumbed to
overwhelming exhaustion, but that was all. Even when escaping the pain
that Madam. Pomphery couldn't relieve, he did not go willingly into sleep in
the infirmary. The meda-witch would always protest loudly, but release him
to his own, well worded rooms, as soon as possible,-

Except those meetings wouldn't happen any more. He'd forgotten that for a
moment!

Mustn't forget and show up before Voldemort after betraying him, -he didn't
wont to imagine. He wondered if his mind, too, was slipping.

Can't forget that, as a known traitor, he was almost as much of a target now
as the Potter brat. Most of all, he must remember that his official reason for
being permitted to exist was gone, and that he was living only by the whim
of Dumbledore; that and the verbal guarantee of the Ministry. He winced at
that last thought. Should Dumbledore fall, he planned to leave the country
immediate.

Severus forced himself to his feet. His legs wobbled alarmingly.

Moments later Severus found himself opening the warded door to his own
privet chambers, only vaguely recalling the hasty walk there. He lit one lamp

with a reflexive twitch of his wand hand, sans wand. Then he made a beeline
for the wardrobe, but changed his mind and stopped in front of the full length
mirror.

The outfit he wore was wrinkled, past its prime, and smelling strongly of the
potions lab, but he couldn't bear to endure the hunger long enough to change.
Delay was not only unpleasant, it was dangerous. He lingered only one aching
moment to glare himself in the eye. His reflection glared right back, mocking
but perfectly opaque.

"Still here," it murmured almost teasingly, and Severus obverted his gaze.
With of a swish of his cloaked, he whirled, snatched his perfectly preserved
vintage broom, and headed for Hogsheads village. He left the oil lamp
flickering, the wards undone, and the thick oak door wide open behind him.
Severus flew into the cold, pale sky.

For the past week Severus Snape had been in fairly good humor. Acting
Headmastership seemed to agree with him. With the entire faculty absent,
except for Argus who hardly counted anyway, Snape could moved freely
about the castle and grounds, without concern for prying eyes following
him, or talkative professors ensnaring him in unwanted conversation. He'd
settled into a comfortable routine of waking around noon, paying a breakfast
visit to the kitchens, where he did his best to keep the house elves on their

toes, exchanging a few sentences with Argus, and taking most of the rest of
his hours on his potions; or, to be precise, a single potion which was now
perfected.

Looking back he could see that he'd let his guard down frighteningly often
since escaping Voldemort. It was a wonder nothing worse hadn't befallen him
or the school that his too-trusting mentor abandoned to a Snape's cold
mercies.

Severus landed on the road to Hogsheads, and began walking as briskly as
he could towards town. The cheerily bright sunlight was affecting him more
severely than normal, despite his thick black clothes and curtain of hair.

It was a strange thing, that the sun didn't burn him. Up to a point it felt quite
exhilarating, and made him want to run around mindlessly and revel in the
light. Beyond that point, it became simply sickening. By the time Severus
slipped into the mercifully gloomy potions store, his heart was trying to beat
itself out of his chest and he felt anything but exhilarated.

Severus had always admired this shop, with its precisely measured,
completely unadulterated ingredients. Its endless neat rose of flasks and
bottles put the apothecary where he got student's supplies, to shame. He
even liked the smell of it.

Severus wanted so badly to rush to the checkout desk but made himself catch
his breath first.

It was a good decision, because he realized, as his pulse slowed, that he felt
two unwelcome pricks in his bottom lip.

The fangs seemed garishly huge, no doubt bulging under his upper lip.

He struggled to make them go away, but that just was not happening.

This hadn't happened since he was twelve! This loss of control was more
evidence of his deterioration.

He just couldn't wait any longer. Severus shut his lips carefully and briskly
approached the counter. The middle aged man behind it was the owner
himself, who served as clerk on certain evenings.

Some costumers came when they new he would be there to request rare or
controlled substances.

As usual, Mr. Shmied had been playing distance chess with someone before
Severus entered. A scroll with a chessboard drawn on it was in front of him.

Mr. Shmied smiled in greeting. Severus nodded.

"A -ah, a liter of undiluted hippograph, please," Severus mumbled

uncharacteristically, not looking at Mr. Shmied. "No one but Dumbledore
knew what Severus did with his purchases, yet he felt inexplicable
self-consciousness, at be here so soon in the week. He face felt slightly hot.

Mr. had green eyes, a wide smile, and a look about him that was reminiscent
of that monster Remus Lupin. Never the less, Severus did not particularly
dislike him. They sometimes even spoke, during Severus' visits, of highly
technical potions matters.

Mr. Shmied cleared his throat. "Well, we won't have any hippograph until
the next shipment, Saturday, I'm sorry to say. The freshness charm broke
on the stuff we had. It's too bad we can only use the mildest ones without
changing its magical properties."

Severus was stunned. It had never accord to him that there might be no blood
available, today of al days. Sweat tickled a trail down his back. Green eyes
met his own, searching, and cautious. "We still have some human, magical,"
Mr. Shmied said quietly, and produced abottle of mouth watering red liquid,
from beneath the counter, instead ofbehind it, as was normal.

He didn't do human but . . . he was very hungry.

There were few, if any, potions in which human blood could substitute for
hippograph. Clearly, Mr. knew things about Severus that he shouldn't.

The moment seemed to stretch on, until the noises from the street seemed
deafening and Mr. Shmied's glance seemed like a stare.

"My mother would have just killed you," he blurted out.

This was not the wisest statement of his life. Severus opened his mouth to
fix the situation, to convince Shmied that Severus, and his mother, were
human and harmless.

"I'll take it," he said instead, jabbing his lip in the process.

Mr. Shmied slipped Severus' diner into a cloth bag stamped with the stores
emblem.

So much for his abilities as a secret keeper or manipulator. Voldemort must
just be very dim.

He didn't want to consider the other possibility.

Severus slipped out of the store with a nod for Mr. Shmied, and hurried
towardshome. On the way, his thoughts slid into a familiar grove.

Severus was dieing. He was almost certain of this. The decline had lasted
almost 15 years.

Fist there came tiredness; Slight weakness and slowness to heal.

Eventually, his blood intake increased noticeably. In the last three years the
effect had worsened exponentially. Sometimes he could hardly crawl out of
bed in the morning.

Worse yet, his magic had weakened significantly in the past year. What if he
lost the ability to brew potions long before his death? It was a horrible,
sickening thought.

Amongst the cheerful crowds in the sunlight, he felt cold.

His situation wasn't very surprising really, considering his origins. It was
amazing he'd lasted a long as he did.

Severus remembered what little he knew about his origins.

Warning: Icky Sev-Gets-Born Stuff (and weird biology) ahead!

A vampire stalked the city of Chicago, leaving a trail of bloodless bodies.
She was not a real vampire of course; those ancient dignified and
aristocratic ones won't do anything so crude. This was a victim of strain B341,
One of three pathetic degenerated versions of the virus by which normal
vampires reproduce their kind.

The particular organism was said to have come about because of the
mutagenic properties of the original version of flew powder, used in the third
century. An infected person of this type, commonly called a 'sufferer' retained
their memories, but lost all desire for anything but feeding.

This sufferer was -or had been - a witch of the ancient line of Snape. She
stalked England first, then traveling to Ireland, and eventually to America.
She was notable because most sufferers never traveled ten miles from the
nearest source of blood. She was even more noticeable because she
appeared,for her entire three year killing spree, to have been heavily pregnant.
She hadnot been visibly pregnant when she was first changed, but by the
first killingidentified conclusively as hers, she was.

This was impossible, of course.

A vampire did not get pregnant, or sire children. Ever. Vampires don't
experience the necessary cycles to become pregnant. Even disregarding that
fact, her new, changed body would have immediately destroyed the child as
foreign material. Had this reaction somehow failed, the child still could never
have developed. The hormones released by the fetus to elicit nutrients from
the mother would have been completely foreign to Ádísa Snape's changed
system, and would have been ignored.

Also, it is a known fact that the chemical and cellular composition of B341
sufferers is incredibly stable. More unchanging, perhaps, that any truly living
creature could ever be. Stretching to hold a growing child, or providing
increasing levels of nutrients, seemed beyond a sufferer's adaptability. Of
course, any organism inside a vampire, that was not destroyed, would have
to be in such close contact with the B341 virus that transmission was
inevitable.

This infection might help with the immune system rejection problem, but
would also freeze the tiny fetus at its current stage of development, just as its
mother, and so many other victims, had been.

What sort of creature would thrive under such conditions? A monster,
undoubtedly, though Dumbledore had never called him such.

It was assumed, at first, that the protrusion of her abdomen was a tumor of
some kind. Even this phenomenon was of great interest to vampire experts,
since she hadn't had this bulge before her transportation.

A group of ambitious young men from eastern Romania set out to capture
and study this creature. They succeeded, where others had not, in luring,
capturing and subduing the sufferer,-with only minor injuries to themselves.

Apart from her swollen stomach they could find nothing special about her,
not in her visible features, or her virus strain, or her body chemistry. Because
she was by then a confirmed B341 sufferer, their work had no legal obligation
or restraint, other than to kill Ádísa within 24 hours.

They used muggle magnifying devices to examine her tissues, but found
nothing.

They decided to dissect the abdomen.

After being poisoned to immobility, she was removed to a basement room in
one man's house.

There they cut her open lengthways. Little bleeding occurred, as expected.
Inside, they discovered the cold form of a male, human-like infant. It had a
fury scalp of black hair. It had no life signs. After dictating his findings to a
fellow, the man doing the cutting lifted out the pale creature and plopped it
on a steel tray. They then began heatedly discussing their next course of
action.

None of the young men noticed Saveilky, of the line of Bildsnub, silently enter
the room. Saveilky jumped onto the steel table, next to the mother and infant.

He'd been serving in the kitchens of the Crulut house for decades, but only for
something to pass the time. He had no loyalty to this family or home. He lifted
the cold infant in his arms and vanished, unhindered by the house's ancient
and strong apperation wards.

A hot fire flickered in the old stone fireplace. Shadows danced eagerly on the
cobwebby walls of the room. The baby, warmed by the fire, drew a dusty
breathof air and began to cry.

"Linessta, boyn lest intai" called Salveilky, the house-elf holding him. Another
elf entered with a baby bottle of warm milk. She handed it to Saveilky, who
offered it to the baby. The child latched on quickly. This wasn't quit human
milk, but it was clearly close enough.

Branches clawed at the castle's broken window pains, as the wind steered
the forbidden forest surrounding them.

Word would travel quickly among the house-elves, that the distinguished
and honorable line of Snape was alive again, and in need of servants. The
first task would be to dust all of the rooms in this, the historic home of the
Snapes.

30 years later, Harry James Potter opened his eyes, squinting in the light.
His body ached as though he'd just been run over by a truck. The bed
beneath him felt too soft to be his. A hospital bed? Dudley was staring down
at him, with huge eyes and strange expression on his chubby face. Harry
could taste the coppery tang of blood in His mouth.

To Be Continued . . .

Please review: tell me if this chapter makes any sense at all!

Next Time: Harry's true nature will be reveled! We will meet Argus this time,
and Severus will have the strangest day of his life! (And that's really saying
something.)