The reincarnation potion only worked on those few people whose life Destiny had chosen to interfere with. Although the potion itself was fairly easy to construct, it was deadly to human beings unless some super-human force decided to interject on the drinker’s behalf. There were rumors that this had happened a couple of time in Ancient days, but in written history only two wizards had ever had such assistance. One, of course, was Merlin. The other was Percival Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore’s great-great-grandfather. Some said that the current headmaster of Hogwarts had been trying to follow in his ancestor’s footsteps by leading the Light, but of course it did not work that way. Destiny had to call a person forward to do horrible things for the better of wizard hood. Those who did so on their own were merely ambitious.

People were able to take the potion were “called”, somehow. They seemed to know that the potion would work on them. The few others who had taken the potion, thinking that there had to be a trick to surviving its poison and gaining a second life, had supposedly burned alive from the inside out, their intestines melting and dripping out of their eyes, nose, and mouth like water from a faucet.

It had not happened in several hundred years, of course. After that fate met a couple of wizards, the rest had learned to steer clear of the potion. Even Voldemort had known enough to stay away from that particular substance. Of course, Severus thought wryly, he might have liked it if his old master had taken the potion. Certainly seeing the man die in such a painfully violent way would have been more satisfactory than watching him fall, almost peacefully, as a victim of Potter’s first, and, according to the boy, last killing curse.

Tom Riddle had raped innocence from the world until the very end.

Severus forced himself to take his thoughts away from Voldemort. As nice as it was to remember the site of the man’s still, cold body, Riddle had infested his mind for more than twenty years. Now that the evil was purged from the world, Severus might as well purge it from himself. He turned his concentration instead to the potion that simmered hauntingly in front of him. The Reincarnation Potion.

The potion hissed like an uncontrolled acid. Severus closed his eyes for a moment and then plucked one hair from his head and dropped it into the mix. It dissolved in a moment and the potion turned the most intimidating shade of pink that existed in the wizarding world. Every potions master knew to turn tail and run at that color.

Severus stirred it once, lightly, and stoppered a vial of it. He slipped the vial into the inner pocket of his robes and banished what was left of it. He was not foolish enough to leave that lying around. He’d rather be forced to make the entire thing again if something untoward should happen to the vial in his pocket—although, of course, he would take the utmost care that nothing should happen.

Potter was sitting stoically in the hospital wing where Severus had left him two hours before. He didn’t turn his head when Severus entered the room, and Severus gave a slight cough to announce his presence. Potter’s head rotated, a lock of black hair falling away from his face, and riveted his sightless green eyes approximately towards Severus. Even two years after Potter was blinded in the final battle against Voldemort, Severus was unused to the sight of Potter’s scar-lined face and dulled green eyes.

“Professor?” Potter’s voice no longer held a trace of childish innocence. It was hard now. A man’s voice.

“I’m here, Potter.” Severus swallowed. “With your potion.”

Harry nodded once. His expression seemed to soften slightly, and he waved slightly in front of him as though to suggest that Severus might sit down. “I didn’t let you ask me many questions before.”

“I believe I understand how you must be feeling.”

“Oh?”

“Sure. You forget that I, too, lost all my friends at the end of a war and found myself alone.”

Harry grimaced. “This will help you, too, though.”

“How so?”

“You’ll have something to live for. Something that you want to live for.”

“You assume that you’ll live.”

“I know that there are risks involved, but-“

“But what? Did you wake up this morning and think to yourself, ‘don’t solve the problem when danger is better’?”

Harry growled. “You don’t have any idea what’s going through my mind.”

“You’re thinking there’s no one to stop you. You spent your whole life with one thought in your mind; get rid of the Dark Lord, and now that you have done that, you don’t think that anyone wants to be bothered with you. The bridges you’ve burned leave you trapped off at all sides, the tables turn, it’s all gone, and what’s left for you?”

“Stop! You don’t know what I’m going through.”

“I know that this isn’t the solution to it,” Snape hissed.

“No? What is the solution when everything around you has gone to hell? I don’t have my dead enemy’s son to protect.”

Snape sneered. “Potter, when the sky is falling, don’t look outside the window.”

“Trying to be Dumbledore now?”

Now it was Snape’s turn to growl. The last thing that he needed was to be compared to that twinkling, manipulative son of a witch.

Harry bit his lower lip for a moment, and then he turned his head towards Severus. “Look, this is going to be fine. I know that it is.”

“You’re still young. Don’t run away. The act of living is better that your worst, worst day.”

“This is living! It’s just your doubt that blinds you.”

“Just drop these thoughts behind you now.” Even as he said the words, Severus knew that it was no use. Potter was determined for this to work. He was determine to take the potion, determined that he should have a rebirth. He was so young, Severus thought. Merlin and Dumbledore had both been ancient wizards before they took the Reincarnation Potion. Potter was barely more than a child. He hadn’t lived the first time around.

But maybe that was the point. Potter hadn’t had a chance to live the first time around. This was his chance, the only chance that the boy thought would work. Did Severus really have the right to rob him of that? Did he have the right to refuse to help the boy, to force him to grow up cold and bitter and friendless, as Severus had?

“And me as your parent?” Severus asked. It was the only thing that he understood less than the fact that Potter wanted to be reincarnated. He could have any set of parents that he wanted, their DNA being combined with the DNA of James and Lily Potter in order to create a new child. Severus had thought that Potter might choose a couple of distant friends from school, or even give himself up for adoption.

“If I went with a couple, there’s no guarantee that they wouldn’t have their own child later on and perhaps not treat me as well. I went through that once already, I don’t want to go through it again. You’re young enough to take care of a small child, but you don’t necessarily want to settle down with a wife, so you probably won’t have another for me to compete with.”

“Selfish, Potter?” Severus’s face twisted wryly.

Harry just shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I, as I am, will only be around for a few hours longer. They may as well be self-satisfying hours. In any case, even if you were to have your own child, you wouldn’t treat them any differently than you would treat me.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“You made the potion, which means that you understand its properties better than most people. You understand how completely you yourself will be imbued in my body and soul, just as much as my current parents… and you loved my mother. I think that you might have liked to have had a child with her. You won’t abuse it if it happens.”

“You act like you’ve thought of everything. Have you considered the fact that for much of your childhood I did not like you?”

Harry shrugged. “So you’ll work hard to make sure that I don’t have the same character flaws the second time around as I did the first time around. Your own DNA in me will guarantee that you overlook any resemblance I might have to James, and you will not let yourself be manipulated by Harry Potter’s fame and glory. Many others would.”

Severus nodded. “I will take you in, if it is your wish. Before I give you the potion, though, I want to be sure that you know exactly what you’re getting into. How much have you researched this potion?”

“None,” Harry responded calmly. “My parents…visited me. They told me that it was an option for me. I took it.”

Severus’s jaw tightened. Trust James not to give his son the facts. He might have expected more from Lily, though. He caught himself in the middle of these thoughts. How had they visited their son at all? Did he mean that he had heard about this in the graveyard or the time that he died for a few long minutes at Voldemort’s hands?

“The potion,” he said, “does not turn back time completely. At least, it never has. In theory a potion master might be able to make a potion potent enough to turn the drinker back to the first day of their infancy, but it’s not like we exactly have the opportunity to practice or experiment with the recipe.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you take the potion, you won’t suddenly turn into a newborn baby,” Severus said simply. “How old you are will depend on the potency of the potion that I made.”

“Do you have a guess?”

Severus sighed, steepling his hands together. “Merlin was a toddler, I believe. Dumbledore was nearly seven.”

“That old?”

“I feel fairly confident that mine is a bit more potent than Augustus Revinwood’s—that was the potions master that Dumbledore entrusted. They were friends, but Revinwood was young and still fairly inexperienced. I am not.”

“But… How will I have developed up until then? I mean, I won’t be Harry Potter any more. I’m likely to be nothing like me.”

“It will be a bit like having amnesia, I believe,” Severus said. “You will not know your name or your age, nor will you remember anything. However, in some back part of your mind, Harry Potter’s life up until the age that you are will affect you.”

“So, like, if I knew how to walk at two years old and the new me becomes two years old, I’ll know how to walk?”

“Not quite. More like, if your family spent x hours teaching you how to walk and you spent x hours walking by that age, that would be taken into consideration and the new you would be affected by that. It may be that you had spent 5 hours learning how to walk at that age, and the new you will need 6 hours to learn. I would need to spend one more hour teaching you.”

Harry nodded. “Alright. That makes sense. But what about… other things. Will their treatment of me affect me?”

Severus nodded tightly. “Unfortunately, yes. Assuming that the potion takes you past the point where you were left with your aunt and uncle, you will behave like a child who has been abused. Any fears that you might have derived from that will be present, as will any insecurities. Worse, you won’t know where they are coming from.”

Harry swallowed. “So I’ll be all screwed up?”

“I will have to work with you a great deal during your first couple of months, maybe years, with me,” Severus said. “I will, however, make sure that you are not perpetually ‘screwed up’, as you say.”

Harry nodded. “That’s okay then.”

Severus reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out the vial. “Do you wish to take this now?”

Harry nodded shakily. “I packed a time capsule for when the new me is older,” he said, handing Severus a package. “Can you make sure I get it?”

“How much older?”

“At least old enough to go to Hogwarts, but you can use your judgment on that.”

“I will ensure that it reaches you.”

Harry wrapped his hand around the vial. It was cool, cooler than he expected considering the fact that it’s contents would burn most humans alive. Burn like an acid, though, not because it was hot. He supposed that must make some sort of difference.

“What will my name be?” he asked, his blind eyes searching the darkness in front of him as though he might see the world one last time before he turned.

“Evan.”

Harry smiled and uncorked the vial. Severus swallowed, closed his eyes, and put a hand on Harry’s forearm. “Change your mind.”

Harry shook his head lightly. “Take good care of me.” And with that last statement, Harry tipped his head back and poured the deathly pink liquid down his throat. Severus watched for a moment for any reaction from the boy, but the boy stood as still as a statue for a long moment, unblinking. It was a long moment before the potion seemed to take its effect.

Harry opened his mouth and screamed.