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miss-colds asylum.

Be there or be… square in a non sort of circular shape.

Warning: Dark themes, malexmale relationship (HP/SS), OOC characters,

Disclaimer: I find it easiest to say I own nothing, because it's true,

and if you sue you'll own nothing too --

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Chapter 3

Memories and Re-introductions

"Before you accuse me of anything more, why don't you explain to me what a muggle is first, and then I'll have a chance to really feel insulted, as opposed to mildly curious to your ramblings." Harry smirked at the smooth reply of his husband, and the way it caught the other man short.

"You don't know what a muggle is?" Dark eyes narrowed in their direction.

"Nope," Harry gave his best idiotic grin, that he knew would annoy the man if he was anything like the one Harry was married to. Before turning to his husband. "But it'd make a good name for that new toffee you were working on."

"Muggle?" The man with his raven hair tied back rolled the word over his tongue, as if seeing that it tasted the same as his toffee.

"Yeah, what's cooler than a zebra at midday? A muggle at a train station." Dark eyes blinked.

"That doesn't make sense."

"Ads don't make sense, they boggle people into buying things." His only reply was an exasperated shake of the head.

"Enough of this! Of course you know what a muggle is, you're wizards, and it won't matter, because the Polly juice potion should be about to run out, it will then reveal who you really are. Such impersonations can be punishable by a sentence in Azkaban."

"Polly juice potion?" Harry blinked. "Who we really are? Wizards." Harry looked at the people gathered around him, all watching with them with wariness, their wooden sticks still pointed at them. "Oh. They're wands! Should've put two and two together." He laughed, scratching the back of his head, glancing up at Severus who merely gave him an unimpressed look.

"Slow are we today Potter." He mused and Harry gave an embarrassed chuckle.

"I figured they were some sort of Wiccan or cult thing, but I had no idea why they kept pointing sticks at us. I thought it was kinda stupid." He could hear the deathly quiet around them before the old man cleared his throat, and the man who looked like his Severus, fists clenched, moved into action at the sound.

"This is getting to be too much. You can't fool us into believing that you don't know what you're talking about."

"How can I fool you into believing that I don't know what I'm talking about if I'm not trying to fool you, but maybe you're trying to fool me and I'm trying not to be fooled, and I really don't know what I'm talking about."

"Sounds like it." Severus smirked and Harry frowned at him, while the other tall dark haired man seethed at them.

"Look here." He hissed and Harry froze as his stepped forward, and his wand dug into his collar bone. "I'm sick of your -"

Harry felt himself pushed back, his husband surging forward.

Danger. The dark fire that he had only seen dance in his husbands eyes a few times.

"You dare threaten Harry again I don't care who you think you are, what name you think you possess, I will make sure no one will remember you except for the way you screamed your last breath."

Harry leant against the cool stone, feeling the way his knees shook. They may have played the fun couple, always ready with jokes and laughs, but it was because they both knew that life was better when you thought fast on your feet, never sinking back to wade through darker memories.

This scene was a reflection of a memory that Harry didn't want to live through.

"Severus." He gasped, trying not to let the shadows crowd at the edge of his eyes. He saw the way the others had turned to him at his call, didn't give them a second glance. His breath was short, and all he wanted was his man. "Sev." It was a keen, a call of need, and the man was instantly at his side. Concern in his dark eyes, his hands supporting him on his waist, on the back of his neck, forehead pressed on forehead.

"Shhh." A kiss to his temple and Harry tried to swallow a breath into his constrictive lungs as he clung to the whit t-shirt and long black coat. His heart hammered in his ears and he felt embarrassed before these strangers, embarrassed at his weakness, the panic that consumed him. But it had reminded him so much of the day he almost lost this dark, shadowed man.

"It's ok. I'm here. Just breath." Severus had taken his smaller hand and pressed it to his own chest and Harry tried to breath in time to the rise of his chest. They had gone through this so many times, and as in most cases Harry's breaths calmed. "I was just trying to protect you love."

"I know. I know." Harry murmur eyes closed, nuzzling, hiding in the crook of the man's neck, eyes squeezed shut. "But… but please don't."

"You know I can't do that." The voice was soft as the man drew back and Harry lifted his eyes, "We've been through this. I love you too much." The kiss that followed took Harry's breath away, it always did, soft smooth, demanding, but giving.

"I hate it when you do that." He gave a shaking chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. "I can never refuse you." The man grinned back softly.

"I know."

"Pardon me for intruding on the moment, but are you really Harry Potter-Snape and Severus Potter-Snape?" Harry peeked out from behind Severus at the old man, who watched them with something working behind those blue eyes.

"Yes. I though we'd already gone through this." Harry bit back the snarl, he was still feeling shaky, although he was trying hastily to build back his front.

The old man chuckled a little uncomfortably.

"It was a hasty introduction."

"Indeed." Harry felt his husbands presence as he spoke that one word.

"You can't be." The man who had confronted his Severus snarled and Harry felt the man beside him tense, drawing himself up.

"I am Severus Septimus Snape, thirty third lord of the serpent band, twenty seventh master of the halls of Lohi." The aristocratic drawl held cold poison in each word, as the title spilled from the lips and Harry shuddered. That title was something he hoped he would never have to hear again, but he knew Severus was forced to use it at times. A mocking lifted eyebrow, with a cold sneer. "And you are?"

"Severus Septimus Snape, I don't believe I need to add any other attachments to my name to impress strangers." The answer was said in the same cold voice and Harry wondered what kind of pain this man had gone through, what shadows he had been forced to face that had brought such iciness to his core.

"And how about you, my boy?" The old man asked before the two men glaring at each other could continue their farce. Harry grinned, scratching the back of his head.

"Just Harry Potter-Snape. Nothing special."

The man who looked like his Severus snorted.

"Nothing special? I'd love to hear that coming out of the mouth of another few Potter's I've been forced to deal with."

"Other Potters?" Harry felt something thrill through him. If this world had doubles, then maybe he could meet the double of his family. He could get to see what his mother and his father were like, if he had any brothers or sisters, if his parents survived when he had been young.

"There's only me." The small voice broke through Harry's swelling excitement and he turned, as did everyone to stare at the young boy he had seen sitting at the table.

"Harry, what are you doing here? This is dangerous. I thought I told you to stay in your dorm." Familiar emerald eyes, holding that same weariness that Harry always tried to hide by the happy go lucky grin, blinked owlishly from behind broken glasses at the man named Sirius.

"They don't feel dangerous." He flushed looking down at his feet and Harry felt empathy rush through him. Just like the shared iciness of his Severus and the man from this place, he felt the same shadows radiate from the boy, that he carried with him.

"Hey kid." He crouched, trying to see the face hidden behind the dark messy hair. Green eyes looked up through the locks, before they widened in surprise and Harry blinked as the boy was dragged back by Sirius.

"Stay away from him impostor." The man growled in Harry's direction, the protectiveness clear in his tone.

"Let go Sirius." The boy flinched back from the tight grip and Harry frowned.

"I'm your guardian. I'm keeping you safe." There was caring, fear in that voice; the man hadn't been looking after the child for long, Harry could tell by the way he clutched the smaller frame.

"You're hurting him." Harry stood, worry on his features.

"No he's not, he's just protecting me." The boy spoke up hurriedly, and Harry winced. He saw himself in that gesture.

"I know, but he has to learn to be more careful with fragile souls." The grip on the boys arm loosened as the man realised how tight he had been squeezing. The boy stepped forward, reflexively brushing back his hair as it fell into his eyes.

"I'm not weak."

Harry cocked his head at the scar revealed on the boys forehead.

"I didn't say you were. But human souls are fragile, they can survive almost anything; but sometimes only the slightest touch can send them shattering." He rubbed his own unblemished forehead and the boy narrowed his eyes.

"You can't be Harry Potter if you don't have a scar. If you're from another world, where there are doubles, the Harry Potter there should have a scar. It's what makes him who he is." There was innocence in that statement and Harry smiled.

"How long were you listening?" Sirius growled but the young boy ignored him, waiting for Harry's answer.

"The way you carry your scars is what makes you who you are. Besides there are many differences between your world and mine. In my world, Sirius and Remus were my pack."

"Strays." The cynical voice coughed behind him and Harry glared at his husband.

"They aren't human, they are canines. And Albus is the name of our pet goat."

"Manipulative psychopath." Severus grumbled under his breath and Harry elbowed him, trying not to frown in annoyance. The boys lips twitched, almost forming a small smile.

"Minerva is an old friend of ours who owns a flower shop."

"Eccentric old woman." Harry chose to ignore the man behind him.

"The Weasley Twins owners of the largest prank and candy business, second only in the candy business to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory."

"I refuse to comment." The man grumbled from behind him, sliding a good humoured smirk onto his lips, winking at the boy as Harry huffed in mock annoyance.

"Will you quit it?!"

"Quit what?" Was the innocent reply.

"You know, you don't act like Professor Snape." The boy smiled up at Harry's husband and Harry couldn't help but want to hug his younger self. He looked so innocent, but the shadows that had played across his eyes were familiar. The boy had no family, and Harry knew what that felt like.

"Professor Snape?" There was mock disgust in the silky voice. "It makes me sound so oooold."

The boy hid a laugh as the man who was now named 'Professor Snape' in Harry's mind, chocked. Harry noticed a few of the others had quickly hidden smiles as well. The mood had lightened with the boy's arrival.

"It's been a pleasure meeting you Mr Harry Potter." Harry held out his hand. "But I'm afraid we must be getting back to our world." The young boy looked at his hand as if it was some kind of trick, and the others had all tensed. Harry looked at his hand. "It's clean, I promise."

"I'm sorry. I can't shake it." The boy had drawn back a little and Harry frowned, but shrugged, placing the large smile back on his face.

"I suppose I can live with that. Besides I don't know where your hands have been." He grinned.

"Smooth, Harry." The man behind him grumbled and rolled his eyes.

"Like butter in the hot sun." He shimmed. "But we really must be going."

"Do you think we can really let you go traipsing around, exact doubles of myself and boy wonder here?" The raven haired man Harry found was becoming annoying stepped forward.

"Look, Severus. I appreciate your concern for our health and well being, but we really have to find a way to get back home. You see there's this thing called the glass elevator, and stupid little me figured I could go one step further. I combined machinery with the limited magic I know to form a sort of transportation system. You press a button and instead of the elevator taking you there, which by the way is extremely tedious, with the ups and the downs and the twisted around and rounds, you are sort of teleported there with magic. You see this was the test run, and stupidly I forgot to put a way back didn't I? And even more stupidly Severus decided to press the one button that we have never pressed before." A growl. "The one button we were never suppose to press." A glare in his husbands direction. "Which brought us here. And now we have to find a way back."

"Sort of like Apparition." The young boy spoke up, managing to follow the mess of words Harry had created and Harry blinked at him.

"What-a-pation?"

"It's like teleporting kind of, with magic."

"What's it feel like?" Harry frowned, a faded memory flickering through the back of his mind, when he'd been on the streets there had been this one time, being chased by the butcher, he'd suddenly been two blocks down and around the corner in the blink of an eye.

"Like your stomachs dropped to you feet and you've swallowed a glass of really really cold water."

"So it has a name." Severus mused behind him and the young boy nodded.

"I just called it Blinking." Harry grinned self-consciously. "You know like blinking in and out of existence."

"How do you know how to apparate Harry?" The brown haired, amber eyed Remus asked suddenly out of the blue.

"Er." The young boy looked caught. "I don't. I just… kinda read about it." The flush on his face betrayed the lie.

"I've never heard such a description in my life." The raven haired professor snorted. The older, silver haired man rumbled as he chuckled.

"No, but it's a good description. When did you first Apparate Harry?"

The boy looked down at his feet, before mumbling an answer.

"I guess, around when I was seven." The shocked silence burst into quick muttering.

"Really? Me too!" Harry grinned at the boy who gave a small smile back. "Heh remind me never to get caught stealing from the butcher again." He scratched the bridge of his nose, feeling suddenly self-conscious as everyone was staring at him.

"He was a mean man, wouldn't even save the scraps for the poor, burnt them in his foul smelling kitchen." Harry whined trying to protect himself.

"You could apparate when you were seven?" The old man asked, something gleaming in his eyes.

"Er, yeah sure." Harry blinked, so they didn't care if he had stolen? Fine by him. "But this still isn't getting us any closer to getting back home."

"Have you tried apparating back?" The boy asked and Harry grinned.

"See he is like me! Ingenious!"

"Ingenious? Shouldn't you have thought of it then?" The snarky voice asked and Harry just waved his man off.

"Shhh, concentrating." His eyes closed, as he tried to catch the feeling of Blinking.

"It is impossible to apparate, portkey or transport yourself magically within Hogwarts walls, and as you came through the wards in the first place, there must have been a stronger magic within your mode of transport." The annoying Professor stated.

"Meaning…" Harry had no idea what the man was talking about.

"We're screwed." Severus spoke up, quite calmly.

"Pessimist."

"No, I'm a Realist." The man replied.

"Perhaps we could go speak of this somewhere more comfortable." The older man spoke up. "Hallways aren't perhaps the best places to have this kind of conversation. Besides this old man is feeling the cold of the stones."

Harry blinked. If that man felt any weakness with the amount of power he was radiating, it was probably from an energy overload. The snort from his husband agreed with him.

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--- to be con't