Well, that took longer than I'd hoped. Ah, well. Another short chapter; enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

::Mindspeech::

-Parseltongue-

Chapter Twenty-Six: Musings

The room was dark. That was the first thing that Snape noticed when he arrived at his rooms. It was still mid-afternoon; if it had been any other part of the castle, the rooms would be glowing with sunlight. However, it was always dark in the dungeons. The only source of light in all of his rooms was the fire burning low in the fireplace; the house-elves must have done that for him. Slowly, as if in a trance, he sat himself on a big, green armchair and stared into the fire. The darkness loomed all around him, oppressive, as he stared into that one, dying light.

Suddenly he jumped up and lit the room with a wave of his wand. Restless, he began to pace…He couldn't ignore everything that was going on around him. There had been a line…Somewhere, Snape had crossed a line and he just couldn't go on ignoring everything. When Harry had confronted him on that one stormy night, the anniversary of Evan's departure…When Harry had behaved rudely to Dumbledore at the start-of-term feast…Even when Harry had removed Snape's own Dark Mark…Somehow, Snape had been able to ignore all of these things.

For months, Snape had convinced himself that it wasn't any of his business; that he didn't care; that he was happier not knowing or that Potter was just trying to mess with his head. But he was a Slytherin, wasn't he? Wasn't it a Slytherin's business to know other peoples' business, for blackmail or for forcing alliances? Or to just know; blissful as ignorance could be, it could also get you killed.

When had he turned to running away from his problems?

"…I think you are his friend…"

What gave Weasley the right to be so sure? What had given her the confidence behind her words? Snape laughed bitterly; even if he had ever been anybody's friend, he certainly wasn't any more.

And then there was the pure shock and horror of coming face to face with his godson in the middle of a battlefield. Perhaps his godson might have been fighting on his side but being there his knowledge…Such a risky, Gryffindorish thing. Was it Potter's fault? Potter had definitely been out there as well…Or maybe Potter was just a bad influence on Draco. No, it was more than that.

When had all this change started? This upheaval of what he had believed to be good and normal? With…Evan? But no, something had been different, even before that. What had been the first unusual thing that he'd noted about Potter? After his godfather's death, he'd been withdrawn, sure, but that was to be expected and Snape had not seen him very much at the time. When he'd gone to pick Potter up over the summer…Potter had been a bit overly cheerful compared to how he'd been after his godfather's death (an act?).

Potter's friendship with Draco had been the first, Snape realized. Other strange things had happened (like Fawkes coming out to greet them) but they weren't, well, abnormal, considering that it was Potter. And though it wasn't altogether strange that Potter had accepted Draco's friendship, it had been strange that Potter had been so…easygoing about it. Draco and Potter had never been anything close to friends but Potter had quickly become so friendly towards Snape's godson; not just polite but comfortable…

And there had been the way Potter had so easily adapted to Snape's house. It had almost unnerved the Head of Slytherin, though he had attributed it to the Gryffindor's Parseltongue abilities at the time. Potter had even known that the regal-looking lady (one of the few human portraits in the manor) could speak Parseltongue. Had he recognized her?

What else…There had been a trunk, hadn't there? A green one with decorations of silver snakes that had seemed too Slytherin for the boy at the time. Now…Snape wasn't sure. The thing that had most troubled Snape, though, was the question of how the boy had gotten it. The whole Order knew that Potter wasn't allowed outside of his relatives' house for the whole summer. Had Potter had it for quite some time? Or had he given his watchers the slip and gone to buy it himself? Perhaps Potter had some friend that had been able to give it to him? But, no…visitors at Potter's house were monitored and his mail had all been intercepted.

Then, well, Evan had happened. Or, to be more specific, Potter had come to Snape and unlocked his memories of 'Evan'. And Snape had reacted…badly. It had been his right at the time, he had thought. Now he wasn't so sure.

"I don't care if you're a Gryffindor…I don't want to hate you…"

Hadn't Snape chosen for this to happen? Twenty years ago, hadn't he asked 'Evan' to return his memories no matter what? The beginnings of regret stirred inside of him. But what did it matter? What was done was done! What he had done…Actions like that couldn't be taken back.

"Harry's hurting…If you were truly anyone's friend, you wouldn't let this continue…"

Snape pushed those thoughts aside. And after Snape had regained his memories, Potter had started acting even stranger and, worse, Draco seemed to have picked it up from him. The two of them seemed to know something that Snape didn't and definitely began avoiding him after that night.

Then school had started. The start-of-year feast…Snape would have said that it was a disaster except he wasn't sure whom it had been a disaster for. The Headmaster, certainly, but Snape's loyalties towards that man were flimsy at best. If neither loyal to Voldemort nor loyal to Dumbledore, where did his loyalties lie? Snape brushed these thoughts away impatiently. Wasn't this how he'd been living for several years, no, his whole life? Loyalties were unnecessary, possibly dangerous. Still, it was a lonely existence…

The night of the start-of-year feast Snape had honestly thought that he was going to die. He could feel his magic slipping away through the Dark Mark and, though he had several potions brewing to counteract the effects, Snape didn't honestly believe that he could have held off Voldemort for more than a couple weeks. He hadn't thought that he would have died exactly that night but he wouldn't have lasted for long if Potter had not…helped.

Snape still had mixed feelings about that encounter. The easy communication between his godson and Potter had shocked him. Potter's interference with his Dark Mark and the resulting confrontation with Voldemort gave him a headache to even think about. Because the question still remained: where had Potter learned any of that? Book-learning was all well and good but there weren't books on those types of things; at least not within Potter's (or even Snape's) reach. Even if he had gotten his hands on some super-rare book, Potter could hardly have learned all that. There was still the question of when.

And Potter had claimed that he was not Potter. In Parseltongue. But Parseltongue didn't take kindly to those who tried to lie in it. That's what 'Evan' had taught Snape and Snape had known better than to try. Had Potter been lying? Or was Potter using an old Slytherin play on words and mind, where one was convinced that their identity was a 'mask'. Or Potter might have truly not been Potter at the time. Possession? Polyjuice?

"Thanks for being such a bastard to my brother!"

Snape had seen this person called Evan recently hadn't he? Assuming that the person that night hadn't been Potter, it was probably Potter that he had been referring to…but the person had called himself Evan and said that they'd met. On the other hand if the person had been Potter, which made a lot more sense, to whom had he been referring? Draco? Snape had been avoiding his godson but in that context, it wouldn't have made any sense. The Evan of the present definitely looked very different from the Potter-clone Evan that Snape remembered.

After the start-of-term feast, things had been pretty tame (ignoring the odd prank here and there). Over the next few months Weasley and then Lovegood had fallen prey to the same abrupt change in attitude. And then, of course, Halloween had happened.

As for the question of how Potter had learned how to remove his mark (and the other strange things that Potter could suddenly do)…did Potter have a teacher? Maybe that mysterious person that had been seen around school? But that person had been Potter. Or at least Evan…Weren't they the same person? This person Evan (along with a person calling herself 'Selene') had been seen many times around the school since Halloween and Moody seemed to have known of him even before the holiday. Of course, 'Evan' and 'Selene' had been teachers on Halloween, at the same time as Snape had seen Potter away from school. A time-turner? That was the only thing that made sense; Potter and his friends had deflected seven near-simultaneous attacks at entirely different places. That might also explain Potter's…adventure…over the summer. Traveling twenty years into the past was no mean feat.

But the battle on Halloween disturbed him more than that. Even if Potter had gotten his hands on a time-turner…He had done more than just running off to fight Death Eaters. Potter had fought Death Eaters and won. Order members that participated in the battle had reported that they had seen only one mysterious helper at each house except at the Longbottoms and the battle at the Ministry (and even in the chaos of those two battles, many people were sure that there hadn't been more than two helpers). Potter had not only fought but fought well and also managed to get back to school unharmed. And though there were reports that one of the helpers had been injured, all four of Potter's group had been seen the next day in perfect condition.

He had saved Snape's life.

But no matter what had happened in the last week or even last few months, there was still annoyingly little to go on. So what was left? Snape uneasily allowed himself to think about the best friend that apparently he had never had.

At first, nothing had seemed out of the ordinary about Evan, except that Severus had found him unconscious in the dungeons before the other boy was even a student. Physically, he looked exactly like Potter did now, except he hadn't needed glasses. Dumbledore's explanation of his presence had been sketchy at best and there had been nothing ordinary about the fact that Evan had been sorted into both Slytherin and Gryffindor House. He had quickly adapted to this new role and had befriended both Severus and the werewolf. Lupin, Snape could understand, but his younger self…? Had it been morbid curiosity or spite that had driven Potter to forge the friendship? Or had it been something else?

Despite the fact that, in his own time, Snape was twenty years his senior and hated all Potters with a passion, Potter had struck up an almost mentoring relationship with Severus. He'd taught him pranks and even Dark Arts later on. Snape frowned; again there was the question of when or where Potter had learned the darker magic. Evan had not, Snape also noted, been instant friends with any of the marauders (save, perhaps, Lupin). Eventually, though, Evan had managed to win over Potter and Black, though he was always cold towards Pettigrew. Now Snape knew why.

What had happened next…? The Marauder's Rulebook. Severus had clung onto the puzzle of the Rulebook in his own time, even if he had never mentioned it. Now that Snape had these memories back, the most obvious puzzle remained the same. Had the Rulebook really recognized Evan? The Rulebook had been created hundreds of years before either of their births. Was this more time travel, then? There was no saying that his time with Severus was the only time he had been to the past. Perhaps Potter had learned all of his obscure magic in the past…

Four original Marauders, one of which the other three claimed to be Potter. Three more…long dead? Of course, Potter had three sudden new friends…It was too much of a leap of logic, Snape sighed, frustrated, he would become as bad as Moody if he kept this up. Then again, he had heard some of the others call the Weasley girl 'Stripe' occasionally…

To the next event in the past, then: it had gotten out that Evan was a Parselmouth. Well, that was no surprise in the present, except that Snape had always had a hard time thinking of Potter as having such a, well, Slytherin talent. Evan had distanced himself from everyone to spend time with a cat that had appeared out of nowhere.

Then Evan had been kidnapped…And Snape had become a spy for the Dumbledore. Snape's stomach sank. Was this the reason, then? Potter might have become his friend if he knew that it was his responsibility to the light…But, no. That was too much like the 'old' Potter, before his abrupt personality shift over the summer. Or maybe the Potter that had thought like that had never existed. Had Snape been too blinded by prejudice when looking at Potter?

After Evan's kidnapping, he had began teaching Severus many useful things. That useful teleporting spell, Occlumency, Parseltongue…even some potions! What useful thing hadn't Evan taught him? But then, a rebellious part of Snape muttered, he had only been teaching Severus as a spy. In reality, Evan had had the power all along to release Severus from the Dark Mark. Snape's rational side pointed out that the past couldn't be changed.

Even as Evan was teaching Severus, the time traveler was always sneaking off. Severus had caught Evan a couple times, talking to Death Eaters. Trying to convince them out of Voldemort's service? But he had known that he couldn't change the past…But he could sit on their change of loyalty for twenty years until he let them all out of Voldemort's service. It seemed farfetched…But even the Order had been surprised by the sheer number of Death Eaters that had deserted Voldemort on Halloween. There had been some organization there.

Then there had been the Halloween Ball, Evan's final goodbye…And he had been gone. Memories after that faded away into the familiar obscurity of events long passed.

Snape reviewed what he had accepted with some disappointment. Even Snape accepted every strange thing that he had seen twenty years ago…It wasn't enough to reach any conclusions. And really, he didn't want to accept the events of twenty years ago. That meant either accepting that he'd been friends with Potter or Evan had never been his friend to begin with. It could be said that there were even more riddles than before.

The biggest puzzle, he supposed, was that Evan had demonstrated knowledge that Harry had never had opportunity to obtain; if he was looking for the cause, the past was the wrong place to look.

So what to do? Confront Potter? Pretend that he was still living in denial? Apologize (did he really have anything to apologize for)? Look for 'Evan' who wasn't?

"Isn't this unnecessarily difficult…?"

Snape remembered the dream that he'd had the night before. He had been caught in an Acromantla's web while his own, younger voice berated him from somewhere out of sight. There was a haunting green…

And when the light changed, it wasn't a spider's web he was caught in but an abstract chessboard. Even though every square was grey and twisted, he was sure it was a chessboard; it was, after all, his dream. His younger voice was crying now, begging for forgiveness to someone who wasn't there. Telling Evan over and over that he'd never hate him.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Dear Ms Skeeter,

I'm sure that, as an experienced reporter, you have your ear open for gossip, so I won't bother repeating the latest. However, the Halloween Battles are something that you have yet to cover – but of course you haven't; your specialty is scandal, not a handful of Death Eaters dead and imprisoned. No matter what gossip you may have heard on the matter. To the wizarding world, these Death Eaters are a sign of the ministry's determination and power and you'd need more than empty accusations to undermine that.

However, certain atrocities have come to my attention that I feel must be made public. The minister, Dumbledore, and the wizarding world are all at fault; I'll let you decide your own slant to my words. I only request that you keep me anonymous and let me set down a few guidelines.

I have enclosed a Portkey that will be activated this afternoon at seven o'clock. Please meet me if you're interested.

Sincerely,

Evan Hasoc

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Dear Remus,

This week's been pretty hectic, huh? Dumbledore's been having lots of people come around and ask us every detail about the classes we had on Halloween (especially the teachers of said classes). But you already know that, don't you?

Us students have heard that 'Auror Tonks' has been appointed as our guard but nobody's seen her except the first day. Have you seen her much? I think I'd like to say 'hi' but I've never gotten the chance. Has she been pretending to be a student? Because I'd never tell if she changed her face a little and put on a uniform. If she is, tell me which house?

Yeah, I know that you think that I should be more polite to Dumbledore but, really, I've never seen reason to. Try and convince me otherwise, if you want, but you won't be successful. Did Dumbledore put you up to this?

Oh, I just remembered. You know how you said I could come over for tea this afternoon? Something came up. Maybe tomorrow afternoon?

-Harry

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Excerpts from the Daily Prophet, November 4 1996, as written by Rita Skeeter

It has been assumed that the hundred wizards and witches taken into ministry custody on Halloween were not only innocent, but captured by our very own Aurors. However, this reporter knows otherwise…

…It has been known for some time that the Order of the Phoenix, a ragtag vigilante group rumored to be lead by Albus Dumbledore, has been known to accidentally capture innocents…

…an anonymous source has given me a list of no less than twenty names of 'Death Eaters' that he claims are innocent…

…Harry Potter has even come to me with evidence that, in fact, Sirius Black (who he reveals to be his own godfather) was framed and wrongfully sent to Azkaban. The-Boy-Who-Lived tells me that Dumbledore has also known this for some time. See page five for details on how Harry's godfather heroically fought the odds to protect his last tie to the life that Voldemort ruined and how this battle ultimately led to his demise…

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Ugh. Pages of thinking and recap. Sooo bored. Well, the next chapter might have more fun?

Well, it seems that (unless I chicken out on the NaNoWriMo) I'll be working on Dark Angel very hard this month. Huh. I mean, it would be nice to get at least a sizable portion finished by Christmas.