The face staring back at me from the mirror belonged to none other than Severus Snape.

Chapter 2:

«This has to be Polyjuice potion» said the pink haired girl standing next to me. I assumed it was Snape. He stared intensely at his reflection with a deep scowl. "Someone must have thought it amusing to play a prank on us while we were asleep". His voice was angrier than I had ever heard it and his hands shook from repressed fury.

"Wow" I managed to say. If this was indeed a prank, it was a terrible one. Everyone knew that I could handle a joke, I would even start some of them. I do appreciate a good prank from time to time. But to involve Snape? That was a mistake. Snape was short tempered and disagreeable, and he would never appreciate any sort of prank. Let alone a prank of this significance. Who would be stupid enough to involve him? I knew people used to think it was funny to prank him in school when I was a kid, but here? In the Order headquarters? Seriously!?

The only thing you'd achieve from it was a very angry Snape . . . and a possible danger of being turned into potions ingredients.

I wondered if it could have been my cousin Sirius. But he wouldn't be that mean, would he? And he would certainly never involve me in something like this, right!? . . . Or would he . . . ?

"I am goin to kill him!" Snape snarled and kicked the bathroom door open. There was no doubt who he was talking about. "No, please don't!" I exclaimed. I didn't know what to do; no doubt my old professor would ignore me. I grabbed his wrist (which was technically my own wrist) to keep him from doing something foolish. Moving my fingers felt awkward. My hands where surprisingly big compared to his and my fingers unnaturally long.

"Let go of me!" he snarled at me. It made my face look distorted and ugly. "Sn- Professor Snape. Calm down. Don't go to any hasty conclusions before you have evidence of-"

"I do not need evidence! I know who did this!"

"You can't be sure it was him!"

"Of course, I can! Who else would be stupid enough to play a prank like this? To waste a good amount of polyjuice potion just to get back at me? This is unacceptable, and I promise I will give Dumbledore my opinion of the man! That will be after I have killed him first!"

"Professor Snape, think rationally. What if Sirius had nothing to do with this? Then you'd charge an innocent man for no reason!" I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice but failed.

"Black was never an innocent man, miss Tonks!" Snape cried furiously. He tried to yank his hand out of my grip, but I held on too tightly. Then he tried to reach for his wand, but it was in a different place from what he was used to. I, however, knew where it was. I grabbed it from the wand holster on the side of his right calf and held it out of his reach. "Please! Just . . . calm down!" I tried to reason with him.

At this stage, he was too furious for words. He snarled at me with pure outrage on his face. It was obvious he thought I was in on the joke and that all of this was a scheme to humiliate him. I should probably try to calm him down before he did something irrational . . . like attack me.

At this point I was really glad we weren't on the first floor, or else the painting of Sirius's mother would have heard our commotion and started screaming. That would have made people come out to see what was going on which would have made the entire situation a hundred times worse.

Snape tried to snatch the wand I had in my robes, but I threw the wand I held in my hand to the floor and grabbed his other hand before he could reach it. He got a wild expression on his face, like a cornered animal. Before I could do anything to calm him down; he bit me.

"Ouch!" I yelped and let go of him. He tried again to snatch the wand I had somewhere in my robes, but I dodged him and snatched the wand on the floor.

For half a second we stood in the dark hallway and stared at each other. I held Snape at wand-point and he still had the same expression of a cornered animal ready to lash out at me at any moment. How did we get to this again? I almost never started a fight and here I was threatening an unarmed person who, at the moment, was half my size. I would never be able to make him calm down now. . .

But I couldn't exactly stun him either. That would certainly not help with his temper. If only I could get him out of the open hallway so nobody could hear us, I might find a way to calm him down. And possibly keep him from killing Sirius . . . I hesitated for half a second too long. That was enough for Snape. He charged up the stairs away from me.

I stunned him.

Shit, I shouldn't have done that. It was an aurors automatic reaction to criminals who tried to run away . . . Or so I told myself. Maybe I had always wanted to stun Snape? He was a rude bastard after all.

It meant bad news though. Now he would never trust me.

I ran up to where he lay halfway up the stairs and checked on him. No broken nose, no bump in the head. Good, at least I didn't hurt him. I levitated him down the stairs and back into the living room where I dumped him on the sofa and closed the door. What on earth should I do now? If I woke him up, he would lash out again, but I couldn't let him stay unconscious forever. I had to fix my mistake and the only way I could do that was to wake him. At least we were inside the living room and out of ears range of Walburga Blacks painting now. Actually, I was amazed she hadn't woken up already considering the commotion we had made in the stairs. Come to think of it . . . why had we met no order members yet? They were usually everywhere in the headquarters during the day. I glanced at the antique clock on the mantelpiece.

Half past four in the morning.

Well, that explained it.

I glanced back at Snape. I should just as well wake him up now while nobody could overhear our fight. How did I know he would put up a fight? Because it was Snape . . . I took a deep breath. At least I had both our wands if he tried to attack me. I sucked in another breath "reeneverate."

Snapes eyes flew up and he rose at an alarming speed. I forced myself to put my wand away and hold up my hands while he glared at me. "So, you thought it would be funny, did you? What a great idea to get greasy, disgusting Professor Snape a drink, steal his hair put it in a polyjuice potion and see how angry he gets." Snapes voice was low and icy cold.

"No! that's not how it is!"

"You better have a good explanation for this, girl, or so help me I will-"

"Professor Snape! I promise you I am not in on the joke!"

"You want me to believe that!? Why else would you attack me!?"

"Listen, I am sorry I stunned you. I shouldn't have done that. I only wanted to stop you from charging anyone!"

"You only wanted to embarrass me! Did you think it would be funny to push me around when I was defenceless? Did you think it would be hilarious to violate my privacy and use my body to ridicule me?"

"I didn't push you around while you were defenceless! I stunned you once! Besides, if I had wanted to ridicule you like that I wouldn't have bothered to turn you into me" I gestured towards his currently very female body.

He snarled viciously "Then you wanted to not only ridicule me but also embarrass me to such an extent–"

"If I had wanted to embarrass you with polyjuice potion, I would certainly not have given you my body. I might have turned you into some other random person, but I would certainly not have let you turn into me."

"So, you would gladly use someone elses-"

"That was an example! Do you really believe I would violate someone else's privacy just to have some fun on your expense!?"

"I would not put it past you. That is why you used your own hair".

I couldn't help but give an exasperated sigh "I am not in on the joke!"

"You are a selfish, arrogant girl! Just like your cousin Black–!"

I'd had enough by then. "Will you shut up!" I yelled over his insults.

"How dare you talk to me-!"

"Oh, for Merlins sake, Snape! I am not in on the joke!" I grabbed him by the shoulders "Look at me. Use your legimency and tell me if I am lying or not." I said exasperated and bent down to look him in the eyes so that our noses were inches apart.

"I. Am. NOT. In. On. The. Joke."

Snape might have scanned my very soul for ill intent given the time he used to stare at me, but he appeared to find nothing. He nodded and yanked himself out of my grip. "Fine! You're not in on the joke"

I felt my shoulders slump in relief. Thank Merlin that had worked and not made him even angrier. I might have had to stun him again if that had happened. "Thank you!" I said while a smile threatened to tug at the corner of my mouth. Better not smile when I had finally got Snape to believe me, but it was hard to not see the humour in the situation. Come on, how long did it take me to convince him of this? "No, I'm not in on the joke. Someone else must have given us the polyjuice potion"

"Yes, a certain cousin of yours" he said coldly.

"No! I don't believe that. Sirius is not stupid enough to steal from Mad-eyes supplies. It has to be someone else."

"Who do you suggest then?" Snape spat.

"I don't know! We have to figure it out!"

"Fine!" He spat more harshly "Then what do you suggest we do, oh wise girl?"

I gave him a glare, but I decided to answer his question. "Well . . ." I hesitated "we need to know who is responsible for this. I suggest we pretend that nothing is wrong until the effects wear off. Then when we find the culprit, we give them something they'll hardly forget. We don't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing us affected."

"I do not care if they know we are affected or not, what I want is to curse them to bits!"

"Professor Snape. Do you not see that there are so many other ways to get revenge? If we do this right, revenge could be real sweet" I barely registered what I said to him, I was a bit worried that Snape would snap into a raging fit again, but whatever I said seemed to have an effect. He took a deep breath.

"Fine!" he said finally.

After a moment of hesitation and a lot of glaring from Snape, I gave him his wand back. He was still shaking with fury, and he gave an angry huff, but he didn't run off. I took that as a good sign. "Come, let me make you some tea" I said finally, and I tried to give him a smile. He did not respond but I gestured for him to follow me. Together we went down the stairs and into the kitchen. Everything in the house had even more of a gloomy feel than usual so early in the morning, now that there were no sounds of people rustling about. The kitchen was dark and there were a few bottles of butterbeer and some empty wine glasses on the table.

I ignored the bottles and gestured for Snape to sit down while I prepared the kettle. I quickly realized that moving about was a lot more complicated than I had foreseen. I was not the most gracious person in the world; In fact, I could be rather clumsy at times, especially in a house I wasn't used to. However, when my fingers were so much longer and my feet so much bigger than usual, I was a downright fire hazard.

Snape who paid attention to what I did seemed to fight an internal battle until he suddenly burst. "Let me handle that, miss Tonks, you are going to burn down the kitchen at this rate." I ignored his snide remark but sat down with a relieved huff. He waved his wand gracefully and the finished tea flew over and landed neatly on the table. He didn't seem to be quite pleased with his work though.

His brows furrowed while he examined the wand in his hand. Then he handed it to me and said; "This is not mine." I didn't quite understand what he was talking about, until I examined the wand and realized it was indeed mine.

"Oh, right" I quickly pulled out the wand hidden among the folds in my black robes.

Then I stopped.

"Why would someone bother with changing our clothes? If this is a prank, wouldn't it be more . . . 'fun' for the culprit if we woke up in clothes that didn't fit?" then a disturbing thought hit me "You are wearing my underwear?" it came out a bit more accusingly than I had intended.

Snape looked horrified at the thought. He even took a step away from me "I did not . . . "

Wow, I managed to scare Severus Snape . . .

". . . Never mind" I said, feeling bad for his horrified expression. He was after all as much a victim as I was. "Don't worry about it, it's not your fault." Snape didn't look relieved at all. In fact, he continued to stare at me horrified. I didn't like the thought either. Who would go to such lengths as to undress us for a stupid prank?

"It's weird, isn't it?" I continued, mostly to distract myself from my own emotions. Especially that horrible, creeping feeling of having been . . . violated. "I mean most people would perform the prank quick and easy but changing clothes takes an awful long time."

Snape, still with the same horrified streak in his eyes frowned and hesitated before he said; "how long since we woke up?"

"I dunno, about twenty minutes?"

What a strange and creepy situation, I thought. Could there be something wrong? Deatheaters were out of the picture. How could a deatheater have imagination enough to perform something like this? And what would be the point anyway? No, it had to be someone in the order. We had, after all, been at Grimmauld place last night. But, to think that someone would dress me naked while I was unconscious? That was a thought I couldn't fathom. I couldn't imagine any order member capable of something like that.

Given there is no counter spell or potion for polyjuice, there was no other choice but to wait until the effects wore off. I don't know how we came to that conclusion. Well, none of us really spoke after that. For all I knew, Snape was thinking of Horse racing . . . or clowns. But I doubted it. He was incredibly agitated and kept fiddling with his empty teacup until he broke the handle off. Then, still holding the handle, he threw the rest of the cup to the floor. I studied the trickles of tea spilling out in all directions between the stone tiles. Not bothering to comment on his behaviour.

My thoughts where occupied with possible culprits and motivations to target me together with Snape of all people. I was so deep in my own thoughts, I didn't notice how much time had passed until Snape suddenly rose and started pacing. I glanced at the clock. Forty-five minutes since we entered the kitchen.

And . . . nothing had happened. Mystified I looked up at Snape again. We must have been given the polyjuice at least a few minutes before we woke up. Polyjuice never lasts for more than an hour, so why had nothing happened yet?

I don't know when exactly it finally dawned upon me. Something wasn't right. After another fifteen minutes I could do nothing but stare at Snape in astonishment. Nothing had changed. He still looked like me.

At last I said; "This is not polyjuice potion"