Disclaimer: check chapter 1 if you've forgotten.

Alas, poor Harry, he thought he knew them well.

ooOOoo

Chapter 20: New Old Faces

Early the next morning, before he left for the dormitory for a shower and a change of clothes, Severus tried the glamour out on Harry. It took two tries, but when Harry felt it settle, crawling over his face like fuzzy velvet with thousands of caterpillar feet before itching like a fury as it sank into his skin, and saw Severus' look of satisfaction, he knew the spell had taken. He didn't really need to see his reflection, but was happily surprised by the face he saw in the mirror. Nothing could disguise the curse-scar of course, but the idea of being able to put on a hat with a big, floppy brim and this charm and be able to wander around Diagon Alley without people staring at him was a pleasing one. "Bloody brilliant, Severus! Can you teach me the spell?"

"Not if you can't draw. But I can give you the sketch and the key phrase and you can activate it when you like." Severus looked guardedly pleased.

"It's brilliant," Harry said with satisfaction. "Thanks."

Severus shrugged and mumbled something about breakfast and disappeared, leaving Harry making faces at himself with his new face in the mirror.

The book was innocent of illicit scribblings. Harry wondered if he was the key to Snape's writing in it. Huh. Time travel. Best not to think too deeply about it – you lost yourself just thinking about the paradoxes. He took a nap after breakfast (re-heated toast would never stack up against fresh, but at least Severus hadn't tried to steal a bowl of porridge) and felt refreshed after it. There was even a mango for dessert. ("One of the house elves slipped it to me on the way out of the Hall. I guess they don't mind you being here.")

He was lying on his back with his legs resting on the wall, staring up at the spiderwebs in the ceiling and wondering why his life always came back to staring up at cobwebs, and doing countdowns to see if something interesting would happen each time he got down to nought (boredom was bad when he was reduced to experimenting with something he'd learned in Divinations) when the door opened. Harry was at sixty-two, so so much for the magic of three-two-one.

"Had a nice rest?"

"I wish to complain to the manager. I haven't had a single game of Quidditch all day."

"So sorry. Take it up with staff member Don'tcare."

Harry grinned, liking this younger Severus despite himself. True, he wasn't nice – he gave strong signals of being a psychopath in training – but when he wanted to be, he could be quite amusing.

Severus sat down cross-legged in front of Harry and looked him over.

"Proud of your work?"

"Maybe a little. I won't really know how good it is until you're in strong light, unfortunately. Brown hair suits you. So do the freckles. Best not to mess with the eye colour, but at least now you don't look like that – Potter."

Harry frowned. He'd never heard the word Severus used to describe his father. It was short and clipped and sounded Anglo-Saxon. "What does that word mean?"

The reply was as pragmatic as the dark eyes casually examining the glamour on Harry. "Part of the female reproductive system. How does the glamour feel?"

"It still itches a bit." Harry didn't appreciate the insult to his father, but it wasn't as if he could protest it without giving himself away. Best to ignore it. For now. "Like I need to shave or something." Harry scratched his cheek. At least he wasn't at the stage where he needed to shave more than once every other week – and according to Hermione's tart assessment it was only because he wanted to feel more grown-up.

Severus yawned, showing crooked teeth. He looked better than he had yesterday, though; Harry knew he'd slept well last night. Severus snored. Luckily after sharing a dormitory with four others Harry was accustomed to sleeping through snores that registered on the Richter scale, and Snape's weren't anywhere near as bad as those of some of his dorm mates. "Why bother when there's a potion? I don't like the idea of sharp things being near my throat."

"Never thought of it like that."

"No, well…"

"You were going to make a comment about me not thinking, weren't you."

"Maybe…"

"It was kind of you not to say it."

Severus smirked. "It was, wasn't it?"

"So are we going to the library or what?"

"After you've eaten all your vegetables."

"Done and done, Mother." Harry picked up the smaller of his two bags; the one he used to carry ordinary school supplies like quills and parchment. "Let's go."

Severus hesitated at the door. "Are you sure about this?"

"It's not like there's a big choice involved," Harry said. He hoped he sounded practical. Inside, his stomach was churning. He might see his mum. He might see his dad. He might tell them not to trust their Secret Keeper. He might see Wormtail and blast him into a thousand pieces.

He might, but he couldn't. And how would he feel then?

The corridor outside Severus' hideaway was just as dusty and unused as in Harry's time except for a thin trail of footsteps that suggested one person and one person only came this way regularly.

He swallowed.

As Severus turned and raised an enquiring eyebrow, Harry nodded. "Let's do this."

Snape inclined his head a fraction, not saying anything, and walked quietly down the corridor.

Harry trailed after him, unconsciously putting his feet in Severus' footsteps in an effort not to disturb the dust and allow others to track them back.

ooOOoo

It was beyond surreal.

He passed people he'd seen as adults. He went to school with their children. He was sure he saw Neville's mum and the urge to run after the pretty, round-faced girl and grab her arm and tell her to be careful gripped him like a fist.

"Are you all right?" Severus whispered out of the corner of his mouth as Harry stopped to get his breath back.

"Yeah. Just… a little surprised, I guess. It's weird seeing people I almost know."

"Just remember that you don't know them."

"Yeah." But there are so many I wish I could know.

If it was this hard just seeing Neville's mum, the dream of seeing his parents could easily become a nightmare. And Sirius? What could he say to Sirius when he got back to his time if he didn't make some effort to save him from twelve years in Azkaban?

Luckily they made it to the library without any encounters more unsettling than Neville's mum. It was weird they way no-one, even Madam Pince with her hair in its rock-hard bun pitch black instead of iron grey, stopped to ask him who he was and what he thought he was doing wandering around Hogwarts.

A few people did notice him with Severus, but only gave him a vague look as if the sight of someone comfortable in Snape's company made them suspicious. Harry wasn't about to fake a sulky expression; he was grateful Severus was taking the risk of accompanying him like this. Occasionally, like when they were at the top of the stairs where Flitwick had levitated Simon down, it hit him how strange it was that Severus Snape should be helping him, Harry Potter. But nobody stopped them and they slipped into the musty, mote-laden aisles between the bookshelves without incident.

Harry noticed Severus sighed with relief, and realised the Slytherin was just as tense as he was.

"So far, so good," Harry whispered, touching one of the oak shelves to get rid of the bad luck.

Severus smiled with a brief flash of crooked teeth. "Touch wood," he said, tapping the shelf Harry had his hand on.

"Right," said Harry. "How long until everyone starts coming in here after lunch?"

Severus shrugged. "Not long. But it's a nice day. Everybody should be outside watching those who think Galleons can buy them the Knuts they weren't born with…" He paused as Harry groaned at the bad pun. "Outside playing Quidditch. Slytherin's playing Gryffindor on Saturday. Our two Houses aren't the best of friends."

"Really? Lucky I'm in Ravenclaw. What would you have done if I was in Gryffindor?"

"With your resemblance to James Potter I'd have staked you out in the Forest and dribbled blood over you to make the monsters come faster."

A chill went down Harry's spine. "Really?"

"Maybe not. It's a moot point."

"So you really hate the Gryffindors… what did they ever do to you?" Harry couldn't help feeling irritated. Snape's unreasoning bias of the future seemed concrete even now.

"They think they run this place. All the teachers favour them. Headmaster's a Gryff, you know. I guess they feel they need to suck up to him to keep their jobs or something. So they glorify the little Golden Gryffindors and take out their problems on the Slytherins."

"Really?"

Harry must have let his disbelief slip out a little stronger than he'd wanted to. Snape glared at him coldly. "Maybe things are different where you come from. I hope so. But here the Heads of House are usually quite good at looking after their students. Sprout and Flitwick are quite good – fair-handed, anyway. And that old cat McGonagall won't let anyone harm a hair of her Gryffs' collective heads. But she hates Slytherins."

"What about your Head?"

Severus sneered. "He's worse than useless. Lets McGonagall do whatever she likes. If there's a dispute between our Houses you can be sure who the honourable victimised student is, and who's the slimy sneaky creep who hurt them." He led Harry down another aisle, keeping his voice low so that Harry had to listen carefully and stay close. "One day Slytherin will get a proper Head of House who actually cares about his students and sticks up for them. Until then…" His robes, which Harry could see in the brighter light had a few patches carefully sewn into them, lifted over his bony shoulders in a shrug.

"I expect sooner or later Slytherin will," Harry said idly, not wanting to give anything away. Whatever bias Snape thought the other teachers had against Slytherin House would be utterly eclipsed and conquered by the totally one-eyed view he would bring in as Head of House.

Mind you, a small voice reminded him, given the way the Slytherins nearly went into open revolt after Snape died maybe they needed to feel someone was on their side.

Maybe Snape could have been the third option for Millicent and the others.

Bitterness was back on his tongue again, but this time it wasn't from lies: it was from a truth that would never be tested.

It didn't take long for the smell of the books and dim mustiness of old magic permeating the library to relax him. He smiled.

"What?"

"Just thinking of a friend of mine. She spends all her time here. I used to think she was nuts, but now, here, I can understand. It's kind of comforting to be back."

One corner of Severus' mouth turned up. "It is, isn't it. Nice when it's quiet." He looked up at the tall shelves bracketing them and sighed. "I like books. There's a continuity to them. They're the last form of immortality."

"Huh. Maybe Voldemort should write his memoirs instead of running around drinking unicorn blood." Although hadn't that been what his diary was for?

Snape's nose twitched. "Ugh. You mean Voldemort drinks unicorn blood? That's disgusting."

"So how much do you know about Voldemort?"

"I've heard about him, of course. Just a few rumours – he's meant to be someone nice Hogwarts students don't have anything to do with. I was going to find out some more about him because he sounded pretty interesting just on that account, but if he goes around drinking unicorn blood I think all I'll need to find out is where he is so I can stay on another continent. Especially after how your version of him killed your version of me."

Harry decided not to mention it had actually been Lucius Malfoy who'd killed Snape. Things could get out of hand if Malfoy was still at school. A chilling thought… "You wouldn't want to fight against him like the Snape from my world?"

"Sounds like an Auror thing. Wouldn't catch me having anything to do with Aurors. Honestly, give someone a uniform and they're Merlin's gift to wizarding society."

"You don't like Aurors either?"

Severus shrugged and turned down another aisle. They were still speaking in whispers and Harry had to stay close to hear. "What's to like? They run around in their silly robes thinking they're the moral majority with the right to shape the world. All they need are masks and a secret handshake and they'd be one step closer to the cunning and secret society they really think they are."

"Sounds like Death Eaters."

"What are Death Eaters?"

"Voldemort's followers. They wear masks and black robes."

"Any secret handshakes?"

"Don't know. They do have a special tattoo."

"Tasteful?"

"A skull with a snake coming out of its mouth."

"God, how tacky." Severus snorted, amused. "Right. That settles it. As soon as I finish school I'm emigrating to America."

Before that happened Harry was going to need to learn how to Obliviate someone. Specifically Snape. He smiled a little sadly as he wondered how he was meant to do that. He'd have to involve Dumbledore sooner or later, he supposed. In the meantime, maybe he could do a quick bit of research on the side into memory charms.

"Are we near the Charms section?"

"About to be. Location charms. Shame I'm rubbish at Charms, but I can do the basics. My sister's pretty good – she taught me the one you're wearing. I guess we could always owl her at Beauxbatons and ask her if we run out of ideas."

"Your sister?"

Apparently this was too much information. Severus shut his mouth and began to run his fingers along the spines of the books to their right.

"Here we are," he said eventually. "This is on magical applications in metallurgy." He took out a book and blew the dust off it. Harry recognised the cover as that of a book Draco had been reading with the Mendeleev gloves. "Hopefully it'll give us some information about metal tools like sickles. Brilliant… there's a whole section here on gold."

Harry had a look at the shelves, wishing he still had the gloves. "Here's one on mythical objects from the Middle Ages," he murmured. Funny how it hadn't been in the library in his time. He opened it at the index and ran his finger down to H. "Severus… there's a big listing here for Helga Hufflepuff. Apparently she was really into her metalwork. She combined it with horticulture somehow…" The page number in bold print meant there was a picture: he turned to page 122. "Here. Look."

Severus, who was only an inch or so taller, peered over Harry's shoulder. "Hm? Oh! Is that what you're looking for?"

"It must be. It has to be."

The picture was an old woodcut of a sickle with its blade wickedly-curved. Harry had been expecting something more like half a circle, but with the wooden handle it looked more like a question mark minus the dot on the bottom. Old runes were written down the sides of the picture. Harry squinted. "Did you do Ancient Runes?"

"Yes, but it wouldn't help. Those are in Ogham script."

"What's that?"

"Old Celtic Muggle writing system from Ireland. Ancient Irish religious system – well, Celtic. Druidic. Twenty letters…" He ran his finger down the column of symbols. "Each letter relates to a tree. This one –" he tapped an equals sign with a vertical line down the right-hand side "– means 'oak'. There's quite a few of those – and in conjunction with this squiggle for 'moon'. Goes on about mistletoe, I'd guess. But I don't really know how to read it."

"It's Muggle writing?"

"Mm. From the fifth century, I think. Helga Hufflepuff was Muggle-born. And reputedly Irish."

"No way." He'd have to tell Seamus.

"Yes way. The divisions between wizards and Muggles weren't all that clear back then. It wasn't until they started trying to kill us that we thought, hey, let's not stick around for this. The Founders weren't stupid. Especially Slytherin – he wanted a clean cut from the Muggles."

"So no Muggle-borns in his house."

Severus gave him A Look. "Not that clean a cut. He'd have been smart enough to have seen that without Mudbloods we're doomed to die out from inbreeding." He was still looking at the book in Harry's hands, so missed Harry's glare at 'Mudbloods'. "But he wanted a place where we didn't have to worry about persecution and so expected all Muggle-born wizards to give up their families. Preferably Obliviating them of all knowledge that their children were magical."

Harry thought of Hermione's parents and shivered. What would they be forced to think? That Hermione had never existed? Or that she was dead? "That's a bit much."

"Well, given that Muggles of that time were happy enough to throw their family on the fire if they even suspected they could do magic, no. Barbarians."

"You don't like Muggles."

Severus glared at him, exasperated. "Hey, I mightn't have invited you to go into my box, but now that you've seen what's in there do you seriously still think I want Muggles wiped off the face of the planet?"

"Um. Sorry about that."

"So you should be," Severus said without rancour. "Maybe where you come from Muggle Studies is a joke, too; if you want to find out anything good about them you've got to go out and do your own research. Personally, I think they've got a lot to offer, but if I ever said that to anyone around here I'd – well, I guess things can't get that much worse. Maybe I should shout 'Muggles are okay' from the rooftops. Here. Hold these. We can check out as many as we can and go back to my room. Better to study them there in case anyone asks too many questions, like, Who the hell are you?"

"Sounds like a plan. Where to next?"

"Archaeology. This way. It's –" He stopped dead.

Harry banged into him. "What -?"

"Hey, Snivelly. Thought I heard you whispering away to yourself. What are you doing out from under your rock? Good Lord, don't tell me you managed to make your invisible friend visible? Well done with the transfiguration!"

Harry could have guessed from the way Severus' face went cold with hate who the speaker was, even if he didn't recognise the voice.

Because he didn't recognise the voice. It wasn't hoarse, for starters. However, when he peered over Severus' shoulder he recognised the face. But, oh, how different it was in this time.

Sirius Black. His godfather.

Future godfather.

Leaning against the bookshelf like it had no better function in the world than to hold him up. Handsome, young, his face unlined, his voice low but clear. Sirius Black untouched by Azkaban and Dementors and loss.

Harry couldn't help but stare.

"What are you looking at, squit?" Sirius sneered. It was a moment before Harry realised Sirius was talking to him, and went cold.

Harry didn't want a fight, not in the library, not when he was in danger of being found out as an intruder. He certainly didn't want a fight with Sirius. His stomach felt like something was squirming inside and he wished he'd eaten less for lunch. Maybe he was still getting over the time travel… He looked away at the shelves in an effort to avoid looking at Sirius.

"Hey, squit. I'm talking to you."

Severus had his hand sneaking into his robes. If he pulled his wand out in the library there'd be more trouble than they could cope with. But the ugly expression on his face suggested he didn't care. Harry rested his hand on his arm. "He's not important," he muttered, something inside shrivelling up as he said it.

Severus sniffed. "He seems to think he is."

"Come on." Harry dragged Severus away and around several aisles. He checked over his shoulder – Sirius hadn't followed them. Harry felt hot and cold at the same time as he realised he'd just run away from his godfather. "Hey – there's a stroke of luck."

They were in the archaeology section. Severus looked around to check they hadn't been followed and then smiled, looking as happy as he ever did, as he reached up for a heavy tome on divining lost rooms and buildings. He grunted as he took it down; the book must have weighed a stone. The size surprised Harry. Severus must have noticed his expression of disbelief.

"You'd be amazed what people mislay," he murmured with a wry half-smile.

Harry grinned.

"Yeah, like soap," someone interrupted.

Harry turned.

If the shock at seeing Sirius was great, there were no words for this.

James. His father. Standing there with his wand in his hand and an expression of arrogant disbelief on his face.

"Sirius said you had a friend, Snivellus. How much did you have to pay him to be nice to a greasy git like you?"

It was like a physical punch to the gut. Harry's head spun. Sirius had been bad enough but that had been different: Harry had already seen how much he and Snape hated each other.

And now James had his wand out and Severus had his hands full with the book -

"Protego," Harry whispered quickly, his wand slipping into his own fingers without conscious thought.

And the spell James had flicked down the aisle rebounded on its caster.

James Potter dropped to his knees and began baa'ing like a sheep.

Snape and Harry exchanged a quick glance. For Harry it was all unreal, like he was a player on stage, but the delighted astonishment on Severus' face made him laugh. He stopped laughing when students began crowding around, staring.

"I knew we should have come after curfew," Snape growled.

Harry sighed. It was too late now.

"Make way, make way… James! What happened?"

Oh, Merlin, thought Harry. It's Remus. He's a prefect. Is that good or bad? Sirius appeared at this young version of Moony's shoulder, scowling at Harry with the loathing he'd previously only shown for Snape. Harry quickly tucked his wand back into his pocket before people could jump to the right conclusion. A smaller student was bobbing his head up and down behind Sirius, trying to see what was happening.

Peter Pettigrew.

Harry's vision blurred around the edges. He was sure Severus was whispering something, but it got lost in the high-pitched hum in his ears. Maybe it was lucky Harry'd put his wand away. He was tempted to hex Wormtail through eight dimensions. Behind him Severus carefully replaced the book on the shelf. "Great," he muttered sourly. "Now we can have a party. You hexed James Potter in front of witnesses… there'll be detention for a month. Should've waited until he was away from everyone else."

"But that was a defensive spell," Harry hissed back. "He attacked us."

"Like that ever mattered."

James pointed at Harry and baa'ed louder, his face going red with frustration.

Remus frowned. It was the same expression he'd wear in twenty years, leaning on a fence talking with Harry about how he wished he'd had more time for him recently.

"And who are you?" he asked softly.

"I think that's something to be discussed with Professor Dumbledore," Harry said, taking this last way out.

"Really? Is this before or after your detentions for hexing one of your school mates?"

"How do you know I hexed him?" Harry snapped back. "That's kind of jumping to conclusions a bit, isn't it?" He looked at Severus, waiting for him to say something in their defence.

Remus' gaze flickered to Snape and away again, as if he knew he'd jumped to conclusions but couldn't quite see that the conclusions were wrong.

Severus glared back at him from behind his usual curtain of greasy hair, his arms crossed over his chest. It was so close to his adult expression looking at Wormtail was preferable.

Harry's vision narrowed a little more. Any minute now he was going to tell Remus what a complete prat he was. He took a deep breath and tried to remember what Robert Python had said about keeping your temper: count to ten. He wondered if counting to a hundred would work. Ten didn't seem to cut it.

"Call Dumbledore. Check the wands," Harry said angrily. "I don't know what spell sheep-boy used, but mine was a shielding spell."

Remus' eyes widened, then he tilted his head sceptically. "That's… It's very tricky to send a spell back on the caster simply by using a shielding spell."

"Yes, it is," said a quiet voice. "But certainly not impossible."

Harry turned to see who was standing behind him, even as his mind registered the voice.

Dumbledore had arrived.

ooOOoo

A/N: Coming up: The origin of Severus Snape, Points Eater.