Harry cleaned for five days, and finally it was the weekend. He had barely said more than “Yes sir,” to Snape, having asked very few questions including where the bathroom was. Snape seemed perfectly willing to use Harry as a janitor for the next four years… Harry entertained the thought that perhaps they could work the apprenticeship out so that Snape only used him as an Apprentice Janitor, and maybe then he would release him after a few weeks, being satisfied that Harry could clean up to his standards. Of course this would require Harry talking to Snape, and he didn’t feel up to it just at the moment.

As Harry cleaned out the toilet bowl Saturday morning, he thought on his situation regarding getting a flat. He still hadn’t seen anything that interested him in his price range. He had looked at several in London that were cheap enough, but they were dirty and in bad neighborhoods… not that he thought he couldn’t defend himself if he needed to. Ron had been owling him too, asking why he hadn’t come back and how the ‘auror’ apprenticeship had been going. Harry had ignored the three letters he had been sent, two by Ron and one by Hermione, but the thought of replying to the notes nagged at him throughout the day. He hated keeping his friends in the dark, just as he hated being kept in the dark about things.

Harry finished with the bathroom and moved out into the lab. Snape was out of the shop for an hour gathering ingredients from elsewhere, and Harry had no need to get instructions, already knowing what his new sole purpose in life was.

Knowing the lab was already clean, but not wanting to sit around and do nothing, he hurriedly mopped around the work benches and scrubbed between the stone tiles. Only a few more hours until noon and then he would have the whole rest of the day to do as he pleased, including looking for a flat.

On his hands and knees Harry began to clean under the work benches, trying to drag the dead spiders and cobwebs that he had apparently missed before out from underneath them. To himself he mused what the expression on Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s face might be if he returned to Privet Drive and asked for his room back, even though he never had any intention of returning to the foul place again. Little Whinging was nice however, and he thought he could stand to look for a flat there, even if there was a chance he might spot his relatives in town now and again… though that could have its upsides just because he knew it might annoy them to see him around.

After a while Harry’s knees ached and his legs were half asleep. Trying to stand up on his numb legs, Harry staggered slightly, very aware that he had nearly just knocked into one of Snape’s simmering cauldrons. From the instructions on the desk next to the small cauldron Harry saw that it was a pink love potion, and Harry sniggered, wondering that Snape would sink so low as to brew and sell such a thing. The instructions told him that it was a relatively mild potion however and would not cause somebody to fall completely in love, but instead only begin to really like somebody else. Maybe I’ll just slip a drop of this in his tea, Harry thought, thinking that maybe it would cause Snape to go easier on him with his cleaning duties.

Thinking that it would be ok to walk around now that his legs had had a moment to wake up, Harry took a step forward and fell face first to the ground as his legs gave out completely from underneath him. On the way down he knocked into the work bench behind him, knocking several bottled potions into a large cauldron full of bubbling purple potion sitting on the floor next to it. A green bottled potion also knocked over on the work bench and spilled over the side onto the top of Harry’s head.

“Ick,” Harry said without thinking. He wondered what had spilled on him and hoped it wasn’t a love potion. He didn’t have time to dwell on it however as the room was quickly filling with gas that burned his lungs. It was coming from the potion that the bottled potions had spilled into. Although it was once purple and frothy, it was now black and toxic looking.

Harry tried to stand again but his legs still felt rubbery. Hurriedly he tried to rub his legs to get them to wake up so he could escape from the lab, but he was unable to in time. The last thing Harry remembered before passing out from the noxious gas was feeling as if he were shrinking into nothingness.


Harry woke to the sound of coughing… the strange thing was it wasn’t his coughing that woke him, even though his lungs burned. Oh no! Had he forgotten the bacon on the stove again and caught the kitchen on fire!? Uncle Vernon would kill him for sure this time!

He heard the coughing again and this time came fully to his senses and coughed violently himself as he opened his eyes. His lungs felt like they were on fire and he wanted to cry out in pain. Had Uncle made him swallow Aunt Petunias perfume again?

For the first time Harry realized he was being drug across the floor as he looked around the strange room he was in filled with smoke. Only a foot more though and he and his rescuer were in a smaller closet-like room and the door to the smoky room was being slammed in a hurry. It didn’t take Harry long to realize he was no longer at home at Privet Drive.

Coughing violently again, as if it might clear the burning out of his chest, Harry rolled over and tried not to vomit. Where was he and what was going on?

“Potter!” A tall man with long black hair and a thin face was barking out his name. Harry jumped and tried to sit at attention, but his body protested.

Eyes wide he stared at the man. Had Uncle Vernon finally sold him into slavery as he had promised for so many years?

“I can’t leave you alone for even an hour!?” The man was furious. Harry didn’t say anything.

The man glared down at him as if he were trying to figure out something. “Do you remember anything?” His tone had quieted some. Harry shook his head.

“Do you know who you are?” Harry nodded.

“Hm,” the man was growling to himself. “I ought to take you back and tell them you can die for all I care… you’re too much trouble to have around.”

Harry’s eyes widened more. This was an awfully interesting place, and even though he was fairly sure he had just been in a room filled with fire because of all the smoke and his burning lungs, he somehow felt he wouldn’t get thrashed as much here as he would at the hands of Uncle Vernon and Dudley. “Oh no sir! I’ll be a good boy I promise, just don’t sent me back please sir!” Harry nodded his head to show he was in earnest about his promise to be good.

The man eyed him carefully. “You don’t even know me and you want to stay here?”

Harry nodded, only knowing that anywhere had to be better that 4 Privet Drive.

The man laughed an odd strangled laugh as he coughed at the same time.

Harry wanted to ask where the bathroom was because he was fairly sure he was going to be sick soon, but didn’t want to break his promise of being a good boy. Aunt Petunia would never let him throw up in the toilet because it would be too much to clean. Harry looked around and wondered where the exit was so he could go behind a bush outside. Before he could ask, a wracking cough overtook him and the contents of his stomach spilled out onto the floor, drawing back the attention of his rescuer.

The man sneered down at him and he wanted to shrink into nothingness for embarrassment. “I’m sorry sir,” he croaked, “I’ll clean it up. Please don’t take me back!” Harry tried to scramble to his feet best he could to find a mop or even a rag, but found his legs unstable and he fell back to the floor as another wracking cough overtook him and his lungs burned worse.

Snape watched curiously as young Harry Potter, possibly around the age of eight, panicked and scrambled around the store room to find something to clean up the vomit. Just as Harry found an old rag on the floor behind a box, Snape reached down and gripped his wrist tight. “Do not.” He pulled him to his feet and just as Harry coughed again, holding his hand over his mouth, Snape disapparated them both.

With a pop they appeared in St. Mungo’s, and Harry’s legs gave out again, but Snape held him up with a firm grasp.

Harry looked around wide eyed at the waiting room of the strange new place. How had they gotten there? This was like magic!

Snape let go of his wrist and motioned for him to follow him to the counter as he and Harry both coughed violently again.

“How may we serve you today?” the nice woman was asking behind the counter. Harry wanted to point at her funny white hat but refrained, knowing he might anger his rescuer.

“There has been a lab accident in my apothecary. The boy has been regressed in age and we have both been exposed to toxic gas from an unknown potion.”

The woman wrote this all down quickly and then said, “Take the lift to the second floor. Look for Healer Lemming.” Snape nodded and dragged Harry off to the lift, dragging him out again by the wrist on the second floor.

Another woman in a funny hat came toward them and Harry’s rescuer again explained the situation, although Harry wasn’t sure what it meant when he told her that he had been “regressed” in age.

“How old was he?” She asked.

“17,” Snape said. “I had a short term age regression potion sitting on the work bench when I left. I assume he knocked it over and it spilled on him,” here he motioned to Harry’s sticky hair. “It was meant to be ingested in small doses only.”

The nice woman nodded and lead them to two beds. When Snape failed to lift Harry up onto the second one, the woman helped Harry up onto it. “Don’t worry, I don’t think your dad will be mad at you for long.” Harry’s eyes widened, his dad?

Snape cleared his throat. “He is my apprentice, not my son. Do not make assumptions. Fetch the doctor.” Harry thought he sounded strict and agitated. She left in a huff and didn’t return for some time.

Harry sat quietly struggling not to cough, afraid he might get thrashed for disturbing the quiet of the place. From what he could gather it was a strange type of hospital. He squirmed uncomfortably as his rescuer stared at him, but didn’t say anything or ask any questions as he’d been taught not to.

After a few minutes when Harry could no longer hold his coughing in and he felt as if he might be sick again, a man in a long white coat approached the two of them with several bottles full of various bright liquids on a small rolling cart.

“I’m Healer Lemming, head Healer of the Potion Reversal department.” He pulled out a slip of old looking paper and asked the man on the bed across from Harry, “You have no idea what kind of fumes you were exposed to?”

The man looked poisonous as he stared at Harry when he answered the Healer. “None. I was out and when I returned my lab was filled with smoke and I found him lying on the floor unconscious. I was brewing several potions and I can only assume he knocked ingredients or finished potions into a brewing cauldron. The only potion I know for sure is the temporary anti aging potion I finished brewing yesterday.” He motioned to the green goop on Harry’s head.

The Healer looked Harry over and said, “Well, I can help with the burning lungs, but the aging potion will have to wear off on its own. It might take a few days or a few hours… hard to tell since he didn’t ingest it.” He moved to the cart and pulled off a large bottle of pink liquid and poured it into two cups, handing one to each of them. “That will make your lungs feel better son,” he encouraged Harry. Harry nodded and drank it down in two gulps, feeling better immediately, even though it left a nasty aftertaste in his mouth.

Healer Lemming began to move off with his cart, telling Snape that they were free to check themselves out, but Snape stood quickly and said, “And what do I do with him in the meantime?”

Lemming turned and looked at him oddly. “Take him home and put him to bed?”

“I don’t know where he lives!” Suddenly Snape realized that he didn’t really know anything about Harry, including whether or not he was living on his own or not… judging by the fact that he had begged him not to take him back to his relatives, it was safe to assume he wasn’t staying there.

“He’s your apprentice and you don’t even know where he lives?” Healer Lemming seemed astounded.

Snape growled. “No.”

“Well, maybe you should find out.” Lemming strode away shaking his head.

Snape just stood there for a moment, aggravated before walking off himself with a muttered warning to Harry to “Stay put, or else.”

Harry waited on the bed, glad that his lungs were feeling much better, but concerned now that he didn’t know anything about this place or the man he had been entrusted to. But surely anything was better than staying with the Dursleys.

After a few minutes Harry watched as a young woman was lead into the room by a slightly older woman with brilliant purple hair. Quietly Harry thought the younger woman looked like a princess with her long flowing brown hair and her perfect face.

“Maybe you can sit here,” the purple haired woman suggested, leading the princess to the bed across from Harry. Both of these women looked a lot nicer than the man with long black hair, and Harry was glad for their company.

“I’ll go find a Healer,” the purple woman said, and the younger woman nodded.

After she had left, the princess turned to look at Harry and smiled as she held her arm close.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Me?” Harry wanted to be sure she wasn’t talking to somebody else. She nodded, and he said, “I don’t know. I woke up in a room filled with smoke and this tall man with long black hair was pulling me out… and my lungs burned. When we got here he said something about me being age re- re- regressed.” Harry nodded, pleased with himself that he had remembered the big word.

“Oh… what’s your name?”

“Harry Potter,” he said obediently, used to answer questions Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia usually threw out at him.

“Really? I’m Jennifer. You don’t know it I guess but we met before. I accidentally got your apprenticeship, and you got mine. Guess it’s not working out very well for either one of us.”

“What’s an apprenticeship?” Harry asked her curiously.

“When somebody is an apprentice it means they’re learning under a skilled person called a Master. I heard you got apprenticed to Master Snape…”

“I don’t remember any of that,” Harry said. “Can I be apprenticed to your Master? Is that the lady with the purple hair?”

Princess Jennifer nodded. “That’s her, but you have to be apprenticed to Master Snape or else I’d trade you. Being an auror is really scary.” Here she held out her arm. “There’s a lot of chances to get hurt.”

“Oh,” Harry said quietly.

Suddenly Snape was walking through the doors again, still looking agitated. He motioned for Harry to get off the bed and he did, giving a sorry wave to the princess. She sure was pretty, he thought as he followed Master Snape out, and he didn’t want to leave her there alone.

They took the lift back down to the first floor and then walked to another lift across the waiting room. Harry tried to reach up and grab Snape’s hand, thinking that he should once he saw a man with the head of a fish sitting in one of the waiting chairs, but Snape shook his hand off. Harry tried to grab the hand again as they passed a child with great big hairy paws, but again his hand was shaken off, and this time given a small slap.

“Stop that Potter,” Master Snape told him.

They entered the lift, and rose into the unknown.