I'm really, very, very sorry this took so long. I have plenty of excuses but I won't waste room with them. I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter, but I assumed that you'd rather I just put it up for you as soon as possible.

Because of the recently discovered rule about not replying to reviews I have, out of fear for my story, gone through every chapter and replacing the review responses with small sections at the beginning of chapters to reply to questions. For this chapter, though, there haven't been any questions that I haven't in some way or another answered before.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I'd like to own Harry Potter but it's not as if I do. Got it?

:Mindspeech:

-Parseltongue-

Chapter Twelve: The Marauder's (attempted) Revenge

The Marauders did try; you had to give them credit for it. After that humiliating day they set loose every prank that they could think of. The problem was very few of the pranks actually ended succeeding on Poison and Dagger and a few of them even managing to backfire spectacularly. Pranked foods and objects remained untouched and when the Marauders tried to cast spells directly on Poison and Dagger random series of events always caused these spells to miss.

The spell that changed the Marauders into girls should have lasted a month or two but Harry released it after a couple days, saying it would have been weird to share a room with the female versions of the Marauders. Of course, once he did move into the Gryffindor common room he had cautiously prodded the door open with his foot, aware that he was deep in enemy territory. Harry was instantly rewarded as a hovering cauldron full of multi-colored ink tipped over; raining ink onto the floor where he would have been standing had he casually walked in. He had gone to sleep soon after that but not before heavily warding his bed and all of his belongings.

The weeks went by and Harry became used to switching between dorms all the time. The prank war continued but classes settled down, the students finally getting used to the prank war. The Gryffindors and Slytherins almost seemed to be resigned to their fate of being pranked at least once a day and the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws just seemed relieved that their houses were pretty much ignored. The pranks as well seemed to settle down into habit as both sides started to run out of new ideas, though neither side was willing to admit defeat.

"Pettegrew!" Harry said sharply, having cornered the rat animagus in the corridors near the Slytherin common room during a free hour, "What are you doing in the dungeons?"

"N-nothing," the Marauder said stuttering slightly, "I was j-just trying to find James."

"In the dungeons?" Harry asked skeptically, "I'd have thought he's more likely to be at the Quidditch pitch or up in Gryffindor tower."

"S-Sirius and Remus are looking there now." Peter looked nervous but that was perfectly natural. He was a Gryffindor in Slytherin territory, after all.

"Wouldn't Remus be a better choice to look in the dungeons? He's the least likely to get into trouble down here."

"I'm supposed to be looking in the Great Hall. A Ravenclaw said she saw James near the dungeons earlier."

Harry studied Peter carefully. The problem with this particular Marauder was that he was a very good liar and actor, more so than the other three, and could make up very believable stories when cornered by a teacher or, in this case, a rival prankster. Severus was a bit better at telling if Peter was lying but he had but he was working on some extra credit work in the library (he had messed up a potion earlier thanks to the Marauders and had asked the teacher if he could make up for the lost points; never mind that nobody else, save Harry, had actually managed to get the potion anything near the magenta it was supposed to be).

"I haven't seen him," Harry said, studying Peter's body language carefully. Though Salazar was very good at detecting deceit (he was the Head of Slytherin, after all), Peter was a good enough liar to discourage all but the vaguest suspicion without Salazar's ability to see auras, which had still not returned. Harry was even beginning to believe that it never would and had to continuously remind himself that it was just the magical imbalance and it would return when he got back to his own time. Well, Harry's time at least. "I'll be sure to tell him you're looking for him if I do. Now get out of my sight." Peter left at a run and Harry, almost as an afterthought, shot a pranking hex at the retreating Marauder. After making sure that Peter was heading out of the dungeons, Harry turned and continued towards the Slytherin common room.

"Slytherin Pride," he said as he finally neared the blank area of wall that concealed the common room. The door slid open and he grimaced at the glow of neon paint. The Marauders had, earlier that week, painted the whole Slytherin common room (including all the furniture and the much annoyed portraits) in bright splotches of pink, green, yellow, orange, and blue paint that glowed in the dark. Thankfully, the damage didn't extend into the dormitories, the rooms having been protected by the curses and jinxes of their paranoid Slytherin owners.

Harry flopped onto his bed, pulling a book out of his trunk and starting to read. There wasn't much else to do while his friend was in the library and he was starting to regret his decision not to come along.

Half an hour later the door banged open to admit a scowling Severus. Harry glanced up and raised an eyebrow. His roommate was wearing a lion suit of the type that young Muggle children wore for Halloween.

"Cute," Harry said dryly.

Severus glared at him,

"It is not 'cute'!"

"You're right, it's not cute," Harry said, "It's adorable."

"Are you going to help?"

"Fine, fine…Tell me what happened," Harry said, grabbing his wand from the small table next to his bed and sitting up.

"I was coming back from the library, through my usual rout…You know, the secret passageway behind the statue of the crying lady near the usual entrance to the dungeons?" Severus paused, allowing Evan time to reply.

"Yeah, it was one of the first ones you showed me," Evan said, motioning for Severus to continue.

"So anyways, it happened about half way down the passageway, which would put it…I don't know…Pretty close to the Slytherin common room."

Harry frowned slightly, thinking,

"I caught Pettegrew sneaking around somewhere around there. You think this calls for a retaliation prank?" His expression and voice turned slightly dreamy, "Something big…and lots of mass chaos…"

"Evan!" Severus said sharply, for his friend was getting quite distracted, "A little help?"

"Hm…? Oh, right…" Evan seemed to snap out of his daze, "Uh…So, did you touch anything to set it off, or was it just passing through a certain part of the passageway?"

"I didn't tough anything…It must have been the passageway," Severus said, trying to remember.

"Okay," Evan muttered a spell and, with a sharp jab of his wand, a silver mist floated down around Severus. Even as he cast the spell he knew that something was wrong. The mist turned a pale pink and expanded until a giant, pink cloud had engulfed the room.

Evan swore loudly. He nearly switched to Parseltongue but remembered that there was another person in the room before it was too late.

"I take it that that wasn't supposed to happen?"

Harry sighed,

"Well, let's see what I've done now." He muttered a wind charm and the pink mist started to clear up. "Accio Mirror!" A small mirror flew into his hand. Harry stared at his reflection; he was now wearing a matching costume, though his was a pink bunny suit while Severus's was a lion. Severus started to laugh.

"It's not funny," Harry pouted, which only caused his roommate to laugh harder.

"Sevvvvie," Harry whined.

Severus stopped laughing; making a sound that vaguely recalled an angry cat,

"Call me that one more time, Evan, and I will kill you."

"Oh but Sev!"

Severus opened his mouth to argue against this new nickname but, eventually deciding it was a hell of a lot better than Sevvie, he wisely chose to keep his mouth shut.

"What'll we do to the marauders for this then?" Severus asked after a moment of silence.

Harry frowned in thought,

"Weeeeell, most of the pranks we thought of but haven't used yet are little things…How 'bout a performance of some type at dinner? And there are a few small pranks that I really wanted to try out…We could slip those in for the next couple of days."

"And you'll be switching dormitories again tonight so you'll probably have lots of opportunities."

"Yeah, I suppose," Harry muttered glumly, not looking forward to it at all.

"It's just one week and you'll be having classes with us now," Severus said trying to cheer his friend up, "And anyways we have pranks to plan. We have half an hour before the next class…Do you think there's time to set anything up?"

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"So, did you set it up?" Sirius asked excitedly as Peter entered the room out of breath.

"Yeah, I did…Harrison saw me though, so he might have suspected something."

"Let's hope your spellwork pays off, Remus. You've been working on that thing all week." James said.

Remus was more interested in something that he had spotted behind his friend,

"Uh, Peter…Turn around." Peter did so, looking confused. James and Sirius gasped as a large, fluffy tail came into view. It was a silvery-grey in color and seemed to bounce with every movement.

"Squirrel, I think," Sirius said, studying the tail carefully. No one bothered to contradict him, as he was probably right. He was the one who spent the most time chasing the things, after all. Peter, who was trying to look over his shoulder, spotted the tail and gave a squeal of surprise.

Twenty minutes later, Remus had thrown just about every spell that he could think of at the tail, and it still remained as big and squirrelly as ever. Finally, Remus pointed out that if they didn't leave soon they would be late to Transfiguration and the Slytherins would probably be delighted if this prank cost Gryffindor some points. He sure didn't want a detention, even if Sirius seemed to be trying to break some sort of record.

"Don't worry Peter," James said, trying to be reassuring, "McGonagall will probably know something that can help. Or we can go to the hospital wing after class and see what Pomfrey; she probably has loads of cases like this. Remember Fabian Prewett in our third year?"

Peter cheered up a bit after that and they headed down towards the transfiguration classroom. He hardly noticed the fluffy tail bouncing behind him with every step, though James and Sirius kept glancing back over their shoulders at it and many passersby stopped to stare.

When they began pulling out their books for transfiguration, however, Remus noticed something alarming,

"Okay, which one of you guys took the Marauder's Rulebook?"

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"What happened to you?" Lily asked, surprised, as Harry sat down next to her at the Gryffindor table for dinner, as had become his custom. She had not seen his new outfit before, as Harry had just been in Care of Magical Creatures, the only class that they didn't share when Harry was attending classes with his Gryffindor schedule.

"Prank," Harry said cheerfully, reaching for some food, "What else?" He had given up moping long ago and decided it was his punishment for being careless. Besides, the Marauders wanted him knocked down a peg or two so it was best to continue being cheerful.

"Well, you know how they got you, don't you?" Lily asked a little thrown off by his cheerfulness, "You should learn from your mistakes."

"Of course!" Harry said, "I've settled down into a pattern, so they can observe this and predict where I'll be and what I'll be doing at certain times of the day. Remus is probably the one who thought of that, he thinks the most strategically of the Marauders."

Lily blinked,

"Wow, you really know this pranking stuff."

"It's basic, really. You need to know how to make sure that the prank will probably reach the person or group of people you're targeting. I think you'd do pretty well yourself. So how about it, would you like to join our group of anti-Marauder pranksters?"

"No, I think I'll just watch," Lily said, smiling.

"That's too bad," Harry said, "though Sev would probably kill me if you accepted."

"Sev?" Lily asked. She distantly wondered why Remus had yet to arrive but before she could voice her thoughts there was a disturbance.

A loud, high pitched whistle filled the Great Hall, emanating from the Gryffindor table and, along with it, the lights dimmed considerably. There were a few brief exclamations from various people in the Hall before everyone quieted down to watch the show.

James was standing in front of the teacher's table, where a small, illuminated, stage stood giving everyone had a good view of him. And then he began to sing and enthusiastically, making gestures with his arms,

"I'm a little teapot short and stout,

Here is my handle and here is my spout,

When I get all steamed up here me shout,

Tip me over and pout me out!"

After his short but exuberant recital James gave a bow and backed up to the edge of the stage where he stood quietly, making room for the Peter, who clambered up over the edge of the stage, tail bobbing behind him.

There was no enthusiastic performance this time; only a nervous recital,

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,

A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,

How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?"

After he had finished, Peter also backed away, allowing the remaining two Marauders to climb onto the stage. These two, however, were dressed up, Remus as a girl and Sirius as a black sheep.

Sirius went first, baaing out:

"Baa, baa black sheep,

Have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir,

Three bags full.

One for my master,

One for my dame,

But none for the little boy,

Who cries in the lane,

Baa, baa black sheep,

Have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir,

Three bags full."

Remus quickly followed,

"Mary had a little lamb,

Little lamb, little lamb,

Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow.

Everywhere that Mary went,

Mary went, Mary went,

Everywhere that Mary went,

The lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day,

School one day, school one day,

It followed her to school one day,

Which was against the rules.

It made the children laugh and play,

Laugh and play, laugh and play,

It made the children laugh and play,

To see a lamb in school."

They bowed and left the stage, triggering the traditional note from Poison and Dagger.

"Hey, Remus!" Harry greeted his dazed friend cheerfully, standing up and pulling the werewolf into his usual seat.

"What did you do to him?" Lily asked, alarmed, as she waved her hand in front of Remus's face.

"Just a couple minor spells. Let's see…There was a Confundus charm to daze him and a couple others to make him sing and stuff. The Confundus was to make sure that those worked smoothly. After all, all the ones I know of that are legal are rather weak. And illegal…Well, I would hardly put an Imperius on him just for a prank."

"But you would otherwise use it?" Lily asked, watching him closely.

"I didn't say that!" Harry protested.

"You didn't say you wouldn't either," Lily said.

"The Imperius is illegal, Lily," Harry said patiently, "I'd be sent to Azkaban for the rest of my life if I even tried it. And it seriously messes up people's heads; I wouldn't do that!" The Imperius, while strong, hadn't been one of Salazar's favorite spells. It was a spell that was actually more powerful when the caster was less delicate about the specifics and cared more about brute force. Salazar himself had preferred the more subtle ones that made it extremely difficult to tell the difference in the person who had been enchanted.

"Sorry, sorry," Lily said, "It was just the way you said it. It almost reminded me of Potter trying to convince a teacher that he didn't do some prank."

Harry blinked,

"You just compared me to Potter," damn, I should be careful of that, "I think I should be insulted."

"Well, you do look a lot alike," Remus added, shaking his head as if trying to clear it, "Almost exactly, except you're a little smaller, you don't wear glasses, and your eyes are green. And your sme…" he started to add offhandedly. His eyes widened and he stopped mid-sentence.

"Well, I should hope that there are large differences in personality, at least," Harry said, covering up the awkward gap in conversation. So there was some truth in the rumor that werewolves had abnormally good senses.

"Don't worry," Remus said, laughing, "you act completely different." Though Harry knew that the werewolf wasn't being entirely truthful, he beamed at his friend. So there to everyone who said that I was exactly like my dad.

From somewhere behind them floated the lyrics to "I'm a little teapot". They turned around to see what was happening (though Harry already knew) and spotted James standing up on his seat and performing again.

"What did you do?" Lily asked Harry, spotting his smirk.

"Oh, just a little extra spell…" Harry said, his smirk growing, "There are certain words that set off the songs." He noticed Severus standing near the Gryffindor table and smirked. His friend would have a lot of fun tormenting the Marauders with this one.

"Hey, Black!" Severus called, "Sheep." The dog animagus turned into a black sheep once more and recited his song while Severus laughed. Once done, he shook his head to clear the spell and glared at the still-laughing Slytherin. Barely a second later he was a sheep again and Sev was moving on down the table to the next Marauder.

"Hey, Sev!" Harry called, waving his friend over. The two talked quietly for a couple minutes and then Evan turned back towards his Gryffindor friends. "Sev and I are going to the library. I'll see you tomorrow!"

They actually did head to the library, in the far back near the section on wizarding law that very few people actually knew existed (and even less actually cared). Though their shared room was their official 'meeting spot', for the week Evan was supposed to stay in the Gryffindor Common rooms and out of the Slytherin ones – unless he had an excuse. The library was an excellent place to stay because it wasn't suspicious and made a great excuse. It was so large and had so many little-known sections which, over time, different groups of students had claimed. Harry knew that the Marauders had their own little table near the dusty yearbooks a couple rows down and had made sure that there were appropriate gaps in the books so that they could keep an eye on the Marauders without the Animagi realizing it.

Harry sat down at his usual seat and started to unpack his bag, piling various schoolbooks around him and setting up a supply of fresh parchment in front of him. Frowning, he rummaged around in his bag for a few minutes before triumphantly pulling out a bottle of ink. He lifted his quill to his new parchment and paused,

"Did Professor Assero assign an essay on defensive charms or was it just magical shields?"

Severus looked at him, annoyed,

"You didn't drag me out here, halfway through dinner and in the middle of one of our pranks, just to do homework." When Evan continued to look expectantly at him he gave in, "It was defensive charms. There, happy? Now, what do you want?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Harry took his time writing his title and name on the paper until he decided that Severus looked suitably annoyed, "I just got something from Remus's bag earlier. You wouldn't believe how heavily warded the thing is. I think Lily would make a great prankster. Anyways, I'd been trying all week and I finally managed to get my hands on it this morning. What do you say we ask her to join out little pranking team?"

Severus blinked for a minute, trying to decode Evan's sentences, "What is it?" The last couple of sentences finally managed to process themselves through his brain, "Absolutely not!"

"Aw, Sev, you're no fun," Harry pouted, "Whatever, it's not like I wasn't expecting it. Anyways, I got this." He held up an ancient looking book. Severus thought it was rater anticlimactic. The book was old, yes, and so frail that it looked like it would fall apart at any given moment, but it was rather plain; small and brownish with faded gold letters on the cover.

"What is it?" he asked blankly, squinting as he tried to make out the small letters on the cover. This was made rather difficult by the fact that his friend was waving it around in the air enthusiastically. "Will you hold still?" Severus snapped. Surprisingly, the teen did so and Severus finally managed to read the title. "The Marauder's Rulebook? Isn't that that silly little book that lets the Marauders get away with everything? What use is it to us?"

"It's much more than a rulebook," Harry said, setting it down and opening it.

Severus leaned over to look and than looked up at Evan, confused,

"It's blank."

"Try writing something in it," Harry suggested. At Severus's disbelieving look he added, "Go on; try it!"

Severus gave Harry another incredulous look, turned the book around so that if faced him, took the quill Evan gave him, tapped it absentmindedly against the parchment while trying to think of something appropriate to say, and then gave up on that altogether and wrote 'This is stupid' in large letters on top of the page.

What's stupid? Scarlet ink blossomed on the page. Severus dropped the book in shock.

Well obviously you are, stupid Gryffindor, Green ink answered.

I wasn't asking you, Silverfang, the red ink wrote back, simple ink on paper suddenly able to convey the writer's annoyance.

Honestly, you two, we can't even leave you alone for a minute before you're at each other's throats again, Black ink interjected.

"What is that?" Severus asked, staring at the book as if it was a poisonous snake.

"It's a book," Evan replied patiently, evidently enjoying his friend's panic.

"I know it's a book!" Severus said, "But what is it?"

"I'm afraid you're not making much sense," Evan said, though the amused glint in his eyes said otherwise, "Do you need to lie down?" Severus shot him an angry glare and he finally gave up his teasing, "It's the Marauder's Rulebook which, as you know, was written by the original Marauder's of Hogwarts: Silverfang, Goldenclaw, Talon, and Stripe. Rather than leaving a long and boring book full of silly rules, they decided to leave Imprints of themselves behind in the book."

Severus's alarmed look transferred to Evan as he looked up in surprise. Imprints were generally risky and many people were against them. They had been classified as Dark Magic a couple hundred years ago because of this. People had been alarmed at what could happen to whatever other pieces of their souls they had if they were just allowed to float around out there. They failed to see that it was almost exactly the same thing that happened when they went out and spent a couple hundred Galleons to have their portraits painted.

Evan reached over and picked up the book,

"Come on, it's not going to bite." He dug another quill out of his bag along with a couple more bottles of differently colored inks, "Here, choose a color. It'll make it easier to tell who's who." He himself grabbed silver while Severus pondered over the choices, eventually choosing a pale green.

Hello, Evan had begun to write, I'm Dagger. "Come on," he said to Severus, "Write something."

I'm Poison, Severus wrote awkwardly. He glared sourly at the book, "Why'd you get this thing, anyways?"

Evan shrugged,

"I felt like it."

"You felt like it? Books can be dangerous, Evan! You just picked up this thing because you felt like saying hi to some ancient pranksters?"

"What a thing to say in a library. Now shush or Madam Pince will hear you."

Poison's right, you know, Blue ink added, but this particular book is perfectly harmless.

Evan's eyes widened,

"You can hear us?"

Moony added that new feature with the translating charms, the black ink, Stripe, informed him. Anyways, Dagger knew all along that we were harmless, didn't you, Silverfang?

It took a few moments for this statement to sink into the two Slytherins sitting across from each other at a small table in the Hogwarts library.

"What?" Severus asked, laughing, "You think Evan – Dagger, I mean – is Silverfang?"

Yes, that's what I said, Stripe told them conversationally.

"That's ridiculous!" Severus protested, "You four must have lived at least a couple hundred years ago!" He faltered, realizing just how much he didn't know about his friend, "It's not true, is it Evan?"

"Of course it's not!"

Oh, quit your acting, Sal! Talon snapped, We lived with you for nearly half your life before we created these Impressions. We know your handwriting, we know your style, and we know you're aura. I'm sure you remember that Impressions, being made of magic, are essentially blind except for their ability to see magic and auras.

"I'm telling you I don't know what you're talking about!" Harry snapped. How could he have overlooked that? He had automatically assumed that his aura had been changed enough beyond recognition, especially with all the changes he had made to avoid detection. "I'm sure if I ever knew anyone named or nicknamed Talon, Stripe, and Goldenclaw I'd remember! Especially if I had spent half my life with them."

And Moony told us about the message from Silverfang, Goldenclaw said, We were puzzled at first because we couldn't remember ever setting or hearing about ourselves setting anything fitting the description.

This is ridiculous! Silverfang's writing had a peculiar sharpness to it that told everybody that he was extremely angry, I, at least, can say that he's not me! Harry was relieved and extremely grateful for his Impression's statement. He was probably the one most convinced that Dagger was really Silverfang.

Like we can trust that! Goldenclaw snapped right back, You would support yourself, wouldn't you! Rather than your friends!

The pure ridiculousness in that statement is not worth even commenting on, Silverfang said, a haughty air to his words.

"Look," Severus said nervously. There was a certain deadly feeling in the air that centered around his friend who, by now, was glaring at the book furiously, "I don't care who's who. It's not worth arguing…" he trailed off. The book had gone blank. He blinked at it, "What happened?"

"The Marauders have copies linked to the original book. I put a copy to cut off communication in case the Marauders tried looking at those. They won't be able to speak of out conversation. Of course, I'd hoped the topic would have been more like upcoming pranks," Evan said, standing up stiffly with a grim air about him. Though the air no longer crackled with power, Severus could tell that his friend was still mad, "I should throw this thing into the fire!"

"I don't know why you're so offended," Severus commented. As soon as he said it he wished he hadn't but it actually made his friend pause and think.

"I'm sorry, Sev, I didn't mean to get all upset," Evan apologized, "It just annoys me when people mistake me for somebody I'm not." Which was true; especially with all the Boy-Who-Lived nonsense. Truth or not, however, he knew that it wasn't the best excuse and his friend didn't look completely convinced.

They worked on a couple assignments for a while but Evan couldn't concentrate very well. He had completely destroyed three quills so far by pressing to hard and an uncountable number of essays (by performing an editing spell to vigorously or accidentally tearing holes in the paper with his quill). Eventually he gave up and was just about to leave and go to bed, though he didn't think he would be able to sleep, when he noticed Severus with a rather pained expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" But he knew what was wrong. Even without his ability to read auras he could easily feel the twisted darkness that emanated from his friend's arm once he actually paid attention, "Why didn't you say something before?" He grabbed his friend's arm and, heedless to his friend's protests yanked back the sleeve covering the Dark Mark. The mark was there, as Harry had suspected it would be, but seeing it seemed to confirm the fact. The skin around the mark was an angry red and it seemed that it had been burning for at least a few minutes.

"Of all the stupid, idiotic, Gryffindorish things to do," Harry muttered. Severus tried to pull his arm away but Harry just held onto it harder, "Hold still for a minute!" He put his free hand over the mark and the pain that had been burning in his arm for the last ten minutes seemed to lighten up slightly. "It's the best I can do at such short notice," Evan was looking at him apologetically.

"Now," his voice took on a businesslike tone. Severus was still speechless, from shock or pain Harry wasn't sure. "Where do you keep your robes?" Severus continued to stare speechless for a minute before trying to pull away again.

"They're in my – our – room." He finally managed to say through teeth clenched against the pain.

Evan shook his head,

"Poor, silly little snake. You should have told me sooner. Any excuse would have done. Okay, let's go."

"What?"

"To the room, silly snake; to get your cloak and send you on your way. How do you usually leave the castle?"

"You're not…" Severus didn't know how to finish the sentence. Mad? Disappointed? Going to send me to the Headmaster? "I…the mark's a Portkey."

"Let's go then," Evan said, dragging him to his feet.

"You can't! You won't be let in; you're a Gryffindor this week!" But Evan didn't seem to be listening to him. The 'Gryffindor' had his hand on the stone wall nearest them.

It happened so quickly that Severus didn't know what happened. One minute he was standing in the library, leaning on his friend, the next suspended, seemingly in midair, while all around him swirling, roaring colors seemed to take over his senses. There was a powerful jolt and when Severus next looked around, gasping for breath, he was back in his dormitories.

It took several minutes for him to snap out of his dazed state and noticed that he fully dressed in his Death Eater garb. He vaguely recalled Evan helping him put them on over his regular cloths and was now stuffing his wand into his hand.

"Go!" Evan hissed. He looked a bit pale himself, Severus noticed through the cobwebs that still stuck to his mind. "He's really angry. If you don't go soon he might kill you!" Voldemort wasn't usually made wait by his Death Eaters still in school. Usually the lot were jumpier than a phoenix at burning day and he expected them to do exactly as they were told. Harry could feel all this and more through his bond with the insane Dark Lord, which had suddenly decided to make itself known. He supposed it had something to do with muffling Severus's Dark Mark.

Severus himself was pale and rather wide eyed. Without another word he disappeared. Harry slumped against the wall, breathing rather hard. Getting through the wards that he himself had put up had been rather hard, especially since the other founders had since reinforced said wards. He had had Hogwarts' help on that one, however. Muffling the Dark Mark was no easy task either. Add that to an already stressful evening and Harry thought he had good reason to collapse.

Silly little snake for not telling me in the first place, Harry thought, drifting off into near-sleep. Suddenly he thought about what he had just said and started sniggering at himself. He had slipped into his usual attitude for addressing young Slytherins without even realizing it himself. If Severus ever managed to pull himself out of his daze he would no doubt be indignant at the nickname.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Whoa…Sev's been making a lot of odd noises lately… "Severus made an angry noise somewhere between a huff and a growl but otherwise remained silent…" and "Severus stopped laughing; making a sound that vaguely recalled an angry cat…" Weird…(glares accusing at muses).

I was going to end it somewhere else but I decided this was a good place. I've got presents to wrap anyways.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, and Happy Holidays!

Reviews Much appreciated (especially 'em long ones…They're awesome!)

Prank ideas Very helpful