Snape spent a few more hours exploring #12 Grimmauld Place, looking at all the Dark objects, and then took a nap in Regulus's bed. He awoke around evening to the sound of Mrs. Weasley calling Sirius's name. It took a bit for him to wake up and realize that he was the one who had to answer.

"Yes?" he groaned.

"Come down here!" she hollered. "We're having an Order meeting!"

Snape rolled out of bed and Apparated downstairs. He was surprised to find that Sirius-as-himself was there as well—apparently they had called in every Order member. The real Sirius avoided Snape's eyes, but Snape did a double take when he saw himself…or, more specifically, his hair.

Never had he seen it look like that. It was shiny, but not with grease. It looked soft and grease-free and perhaps even gelled. Snape realized his mouth was open in shock, but he wasn't the only one. In fact, a lot of people were complimenting Sirius-as-Snape on his hair.

"Why, Severus, what have you done with your hair?" said Mrs. Weasley. "It looks so nice."

The corners of Sirius-as-Snape's mouth twitched, but he said, "I thought I'd try something new."

Most of the meeting, however, was not devoted to this sort of thing. They discussed their plans for the Order, as usual; Mundungus Fletcher fell asleep. Snape knew that Sirius was going to leave after this, because the real Snape never ate at #12 Grimmauld Place.

Finally, the meeting ended. Everyone was just wrapping things up when they heard a crash in the hallway, then horrible screaming from not one portrait but all of the ones in the hall…what was that?!

Snape shrugged and let the others deal with it. Instead, he walked to Sirius-as-Snape.

"What have you done with your—with my hair?!" he choked.

"Um, I washed it," said Sirius-as-Snape, rolling his eyes. "I couldn't stand having that horrible grease in my hair for one more second. Honestly, how are you the Potions Master and yet you know nothing about hair potions? You know how many grease-removers I had to use? Three."

"Have you ever considered that I was never as vain as you are?" said Snape-as-Sirius, crossing his arms (although he wished just a tiny bit that he knew what Sirius had actually done to his hair to make it look like that).

"Vain," Sirius-as-Snape scoffed. How silly! All he was doing was looking the best he could. Snape should be thanking him!

As he left his family's old manor, Sirius-as-Snape noticed Harry, Ron and Hermione leaning over the banister. Harry was staring at him; he wondered if his godson was wondering what Snape was doing for the Order, or if he was just shocked, like everyone else, that the signature hair grease was gone. He fought the impulse to wave to Harry as he left the manor.

Meanwhile, Snape-as-Sirius was (of course) among the Order members who were staying for dinner. Many of them did. Upon leaving the kitchen, he bumped into Harry, and as he did, he heard the screeching of one of the owls from somewhere upstairs…and then the wounds on his right hand made sense. Insolent boy!

"What is the meaning of this?" Snape demanded, shoving his hand under Harry's nose. It was jarring to hear the words not in the venomous hiss he had perfected and loved to use around Harry, but instead like a bark, and much louder.

"It's just that…I really missed you," Harry said in a small voice. "You never told me anything in your letters."

"Well, I really couldn't write anything important, don't you know," Snape snapped, feeling irritated. "Don't you know there's a war on? Has it never occurred to you that an owl might be intercepted, and the Dark Lord's supporters could get their hands on information that should be kept highly classified? Do you not realize the importance of protecting against loose talk? Or does that not matter to you? Is your happiness more important than winning this war?"

And for the first time, Harry looked more like Lily to Snape than like James. Snape had seen that look before—it was the same look Lily had given him after he'd called her a Mudblood. It reflected shock and a feeling of betrayal as well, but most of all it was hurt. Snape felt a horrible guilty feeling bubbling inside of him.

"I-I'm sorry, Sirius," said Harry, his voice breaking.

Snape realized then that perhaps Sirius had never yelled at Harry before. But what was Snape supposed to do now? To be honest, he really didn't know that much about Sirius, so he didn't know what Sirius would do. He didn't have to hug Harry or anything, did he? Sure, fourteen years ago he had sworn to protect Lily's son, but getting chummy with him was asking too much!

"Just…just go," Snape said, pointing in the direction of the kitchen with one hand and covering up his face with the other. "And no dessert after dinner for you."

"Okay," said Harry bleakly as he walked into the kitchen. "I'm going to go apologize to Ron and Hermione."

Well…that was a new one. There wasn't any resentment or fury here like when Snape gave Harry detention; Harry accepted Sirius's punishment without question. Maybe he listened to his godfather.

Snape was actually feeling hungry, and he did know that Mrs. Weasley was a good cook. So he filed into the kitchen with everyone else. Harry was apologizing to Ron and Hermione, neither of whom looked angry, just relieved, perhaps, that he wasn't yelling at them. While dinner was being prepared, Harry sat down again next to Snape, who groaned internally.

"I'm sorry again, Sirius," he said.

"That's all right," grunted Snape, who just wanted dinner to be over. Only three more weeks of this nonsense, he thought. Then he would have the manor all to himself until Christmas. It would be great. In the meantime, though, Snape was still wondering what he was supposed to do. What was a godfather's job? He made a mental note to Floo Sirius later and ask.

"Sirius?" grunted Mundungus Fletcher, who was holding a silver goblet. "This solid silver, mate?"

"How am I supposed to—oh, um, why, yes, it is," said Snape proudly. "My family had lots of it."

Harry gave Snape-as-Sirius a weird look. Snape shrugged and tried to think of something godfatherly to say, but his mind went infuriatingly blank.

"I'm not worried about Ron, you know," Harry suddenly said in a quieter voice. "He told me he's still going out with Luna—and besides, who could ever possibly see Ron and Hermione together anyway? But I'm definitely worried about Krum."

"What are you on about?" snapped Snape.

"Because! Don't you remember?" said Harry. "Last year, he asked Hermione to the Yule Ball before I did! Ron brought Luna, and since Krum had asked Hermione, I brought Parvati Patil."

Oh no. Harry didn't talk to Sirius about girls, did he? Hopefully not, because if he did, Snape probably wouldn't have much appetite for dinner.

"Parvati was really annoyed, but all I could do was think of Hermione…" Harry sighed dreamily, and Snape was forcibly reminded of that horrible James Potter staring at his Lily. "You know what I mean, Sirius?"

"Uhh…" Snape didn't know what to say. "Yes, um…yes, I-I do…?"

"Hello!" said Harry, slamming his hands on the table suddenly. "You totally freaked out, remember?"

"What? I did?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "Right before the Yule Ball I contacted you in the Floo all in a panic and you thought something had happened with Karkaroff and Crouch."

"Well, Harry," Snape replied, trying to hide a combination of irritation and disgust, "that may be because when you contact your godfather in a panic, he assumes that you have something important to tell him."

"Wha—this is important!" said Harry indignantly.

"Tha's right, mate," said Mundungus. "Better let 'er know now. Get some shaggin' in before term starts."

"Harry will be doing nothing of the sort!" Snape told Mundungus, resisting the urge to vomit in his mouth. "By the way, Harry…where are the students copulating nowadays? I'm sure they've found some quite clever hiding spots where the teachers can't find them, haven't they?"

This should be good, thought Snape. I'll have those horny brats in detention quicker than they can say 'teenage hormones'!

"What does 'copulating' mean?" said Harry, giving Snape another weird look.

"It means sex—oh, grow up, Mundungus!" snapped Snape, as Mundungus Fletcher snorted with laughter. "Where are the students doing this?"

"Oh…I don't know," said Harry thoughtfully. "I-I think maybe the library…? Or the supply closets? I mean, it's not like I'm one of them, so how would I know?"

Snape shrugged, but now he at least knew to prowl the library after hours. Students probably just stuck to doing it in their dorms, after all. Boys weren't allowed in the girls' dorms, but the reverse was not true, which was probably a big mistake on the founders' part.

At that point Snape felt something brush against his legs and looked down; it was Hermione's cat. Right now, he couldn't remember the cat's name, but he did remember it from the Shrieking Shack, years ago. To his unpleasant surprise, the cat hissed, let out a loud, yowling meow, and pounced.

"CROOKSHANKS, NO!" shrieked Hermione, rushing towards them, her bushy brown hair flying behind her.

Snape was trying to pull Crookshanks off, but the cat was clawing at his face. With an enormous effort from both Hermione and Harry, Snape was finally free. Hermione and Harry looked bewildered.

"It's so strange," said Harry. "Crookshanks has never gone after anyone like that before—well, except Scabbers."

"And that was only because Scabbers was an impostor," added Hermione. "It's weird. They were getting along fine this morning. You and Sirius are friends, aren't you, Crookshanks?"

Crookshanks hissed as if to say, You're not Sirius.

Snape was beginning to feel nervous, even as his face stung and bled slightly from the cat's claws; he made another mental note to steer clear of Hermione during his life-swap with Sirius (and when he Flooed Sirius, he would tell him the same thing). If anyone was going to call their bluff, it would be Hermione Granger, Girl Genius, the cleverest witch of her age.

Overall, the dinner wasn't really that pleasant for Snape. Harry seemed quite glad to see him, which was a first. The food was the only thing Snape really enjoyed (usually he had to eat his own bland cooking over the summer) so he tried to focus on that, but Harry was talking again.

"You know, it was weird how you said the 'Dark Lord' earlier," Harry mused. "I've only ever heard his supporters call him that."

Snape froze; he was still trying to act like Sirius, but he had forgotten himself back then…Of course Sirius would never say that…Most witches and wizards didn't say the Dark Lord's name out of fear. The Death Eaters refrained from saying it out of respect. Snape mostly just said "Dark Lord" out of habit, but still, he felt that saying the name would make him dread the meetings a bit more. Well, at least he wouldn't have to see the Dark Lord until after he and Sirius switched back on Christmas. As long as Sirius studied Occlumency well enough…but as much as Snape hated to admit it, Sirius had been good at school. Hopefully this would extend to his Occlumency skills.

"Heh, yeah, what was I thinking?" said Snape, trying to act casual, like Sirius might. What he had just realized was that he was going to have to say the name now. Sirius did say the name; Snape had heard him do so in Order meetings. "It's easy to say his name."

"You, Remus, and Dumbledore and I are the only people who say it," said Harry.

"Correct," said Snape, now feeling highly uncomfortable.

After dinner, Snape watched Mrs. Weasley ferry all the minors off to bed, then told everyone he needed an early night himself. When he had Apparated upstairs, he changed into some pajamas in Sirius's wardrobe, then headed into Regulus's room for bedtime. It had been a very strange evening.