Scuff marks through the dust indicated that he had been there several times in the last week already, and broken pieces of furniture showed his disgust with his life during the times he'd come to vent his frustration of the world. The quiet Hogwarts attic on the East side of the castle was his only respite. His only hiding place. He liked to think he came to hide from the world, but the mirror had just told him different.

"Tell me why you're here Harry Potter," it said in a kind, even male voice, refusing even to show Harry his own reflection. A stark contrast to four years ago when he stood before it, his parents on either side, whispering encouragement into his ear.

"I hate it out there," Harry spat out, tired of the constant bullying, the constant stress and high expectations forced on him time and again. Hogwarts was supposed to be his refuge, not his hell. What did they care though? What did Umbridge care that he lived in a cupboard at home, or that he had witnessed a murder at the end of the previous year? What did Snape care if Harry worried about failing Potions and not becoming an Auror? What did Ron care about Harry's love for Ginny, or their friendship? He turned and kicked an already smashed piece of furniture then.

"Oh, of that I have no doubt," the mirror cooed. "But why are you here?"

Harry glared at it. "What do you care? You won't even show me my parents! Did you know Snape told me that my father once lit his pants on fire just because Snape got a better grade in defense? He's such a lying pratt!"

"Hm," pondered the tall mirror. "Do you believe you're here because you hate it out there? Or is it because you would like to hide from the truth?"

Paling a little bit, because he knew this was no ordinary mirror, he stopped fuming and stood completely still in front of it. "I'm not afraid of the truth, but nobody tells me the truth," he said with conviction. "They'd rather I rot and die than find out that I'm supposed to kill or be killed. They think I don't have half a brain and can't handle it." He was still fuming over the conversation he'd overheard the previous week between McGonagall and Dumbledore about the prophecy. McGonagall thought Harry ought to know, and Dumbledore thought he was too delicate to understand it. ‘Perhaps at the end of the year Minerva,' he had said, but Harry was already running as far and fast as he could go. ‘I might bloody well be dead by the end of year Dumbledore,' he'd spat out as he ran.

After the mirror had given Harry his time to think, it continued, "I beg to differ young man. I believe you would be terrified to find out the things I know about your father. Truths you've been passively denying for four years. Truths you've never even considered. Truth that you will never accept."

Feet planted firmly, eyes narrowed, Harry prepared himself for the worst, sure that this mirror too was lying to him, as all other people did. "I want to know." There, he thought triumphantly, show that stupid mirror what kind of stuff he was made of. He wasn't just a weakling like they all thought he was. He was Harry bloody Potter, boy who endured and endured and endured without a complaint.

"Do you really?" The mirror was curious now, and it irritated Harry.

"Show me." He had determined himself to follow through by now. If he backed down the arrogant mirror would think it was right, and he wasn't going to let that happen.

"And if you don't like what you learn? What will you do with the knowledge imparted to you? Will you run from it? Or will you finally embrace what you have been missing for so long?"

Despite the courage he wished to show, something else crept up in the peripherals of his emotions. What if he didn't like it? What if his father had done all the rotten things that people said he did? Harry rather liked being his father's son. He took his identity from it, his manliness, and the way he looked at life. If James could do it, so can I, he thought during exams and tests of inner strength and loyalty. Who would he be if James had been a rotten egg?

"Will you show me good things as well?" Harry queried after long moments of indecision.

The mirror was silent, and Harry was afraid it would choose this time to stop speaking to him. Occasionally it did that if it felt Harry had offended it in some way.

Finally it spoke however, and said, "I will show you the truth that you so long to see. The blindness will be lifted from your eyes and you will be forced to deal with many things you will consider unpleasant. Are you sure you wish to know?"

There was a moment's indecision before Harry stepped forward, wanting to hear the truth more than he'd ever wanted to before. He was going to see his parents, he thought, he needed to see them, to understand what had happened to them. "Tell me," he said, forgetting his need not to sound as if he were begging. "Tell me please."

"Very well," the mirror said, and there on it's smooth surface, an image appeared so vividly of a street with cars driving by that Harry was sure he was looking through a window.

"It's so... real." He reached forward to touch his hand to the glass, but the mirror stopped him with, "That's because it is real."

He withdrew his hand. "It's a real memory?"

"It's the real past."

He took another step back. He hated it when the infernal object made a game with its words and talked him in circles with a riddle.

"I don't understand."

"You will. Touch the glass, and be transported into the past."

"Into a memory?"

"Into the living breathing past boy. I am not a pensieve, but a portal."

Harry cleared his throat.

"And... and when I want to come back?"

"You may ask to come back when you discover the truth."

Harry was disconcerted. He wanted so desperately to be in the know... to be a part of what his parents had been, and here he felt like a child, uncertain and suddenly afraid.

"You may of course choose to continue denying the truth, only this time you are denying yourself the possibility of unveiling your sight. There is no other part played in this but your own."

That struck Harry hard. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Ron and Hermione, even Snape. They all wanted to keep him in the dark. Now was his chance to bypass all the lies and misgivings, and prove himself worthy to know.

"Tell me," he said again, and reached forward to touch the cool surface with his hand, but instead of glass, there was only air, and he was standing on a sunny street.

Cars drove by on the city street, and Harry wondered where he was. It was warm and he imagined it was summer still, his suspicions confirmed when two boys ran past him in shorts.

When his eyes adjusted more, he scanned the area for his father. No sight of James anywhere. "Some truth," he muttered to himself as he set off down the street, unsure of where he was supposed to go. If he really was in the past, and not in a dream or memory, then he could easily go the wrong direction and miss out on his ‘truth' altogether.

The street wasn't terribly busy, so it was easier for him to keep his eyes peeled. There were a few small businesses on the other side, and tall apartments on the side he was on. From the looks of it, they were pretty upscale, and some even had room for a tree between the building and the sidewalk.

Harry was admiring the architecture on one of the buildings when somebody bumped into him, and muttered a lame apology as he looked down at the ground and walked on.

"Excuse me," Harry said, turning to watch the stranger. Maybe he could find out some information. The person turned to reveal a boy about Harry's age, with black hair that fell into his face. Unlike the other people Harry had passed thus far, this boy was wearing blue jeans, a faded gray t-shirt, and a black coat, with a dingy backpack over one shoulder.

"Yeah?" he asked, shaking his head to get some of the hair out of his eyes.

Harry had the feeling he knew this boy, but wasn't sure how. He definitely wasn't James Potter because he didn't have glasses and his nose was a little longer. "Do you know where I can find the Potter residence?"

Suddenly the boy's blank, pale face began to turn a shade of red, and he took three long strides forward so that he was in Harry's face. "Who are you? What do you think I am, a bloody map? Did somebody put you up to this?"

Harry took a step back, not wanting to get into a fight in the middle of a Muggle street, and held up his hands. "No I- I just, I was trying to find James Potter was all and I'm not from around here."

"Obviously not," the boy spat out, as if even the thought was disgusting. "He doesn't even live in London."

"Oh." Harry bit his lip. Perhaps he was here to see his mother then.

"Well, what about Lily Evans? I think she lives in London, do you know her?"

The boy with inky black hair stepped back now, and seemed to be sizing Harry up. Finally he made up his mind and said hurriedly, "How should I know? She's a Gryffindor. I don't speak to Gryffindors." With this he turned on his heel and hurried on down the street, looking back once to see if Harry was following, and then disappearing around a corner.

"Slytherin," Harry breathed. Something didn't seem right. The boy definitely seemed to know Lily, or at least knew of her, and he had made such a quick escape.

Having nowhere else to go, Harry ran down the sidewalk and turned the corner, happy to see he hadn't lost his query, although the boy was walking fast now, and Harry had to keep a stiff pace to keep up.

As they walked, Harry in the distance and the boy not looking over his shoulder again, they crossed into dingier and dingier neighborhoods, until Harry was sure they were in an entirely different part of town altogether. They crossed a bridge over a smelly river, and ended up on a dead end, narrow street. Harry stopped walking when he realized the boy had nowhere else to go, and waited to see what house he would go into. He went into the one right on the end.

Curious to see where he was, Harry looked around and found a street sign, almost too dirty to make out the words, which read: Spinners End.

Great, Harry thought to himself. This was the last place he wanted to be, in a run down neighborhood where he could get mugged or beaten, although he had nothing on him except his wand.

He waited for a few minutes, hoping the boy would come back out again. Perhaps he could pry the information out of him if he annoyed him enough, or maybe he'd just wait until he came back out and tell him the truth. He snorted at the idea then, wondering what exactly he'd say.

"Hi, my name's Harry Potter and I've come back to the past to find my mum and dad. Can you help me?"

Just as Harry was getting ready to scold himself again for being ridiculous, he spied a girl his age with long, vibrant red hair walking calmly down the other side of the street. She glanced at him and smiled briefly, before continuing on to the house at the end.

Harry observed her closely, and tried to decipher every feature. This was his mother. To confirm his belief, the door to the Slytherin boy's house opened before she could knock, and the boy came back out, hands in his jacket pockets as he threw his head to the side again, trying to keep the ever-present hair out of his face. "Lily." Harry barely heard the gentle name come from the boy's lips, but it was there he was sure.

Even more surprising was the fact that she took the boy's hands out of his pockets and held tight to them as she gazed into his eyes.

Harry frowned. That was not James Potter, and his mother was staring at him as if he were the love of her life.

He leaned on the side of a dingy brick building to watch as they sat down together on the stoop of the boy's house, and talked, still holding hands. He noticed the boy glance up at him again, but didn't care. Good, he thought. You just keep your hands off my mum, because she doesn't belong to you. She belongs to my dad. Harry had half a mind to march straight over there and say that to his face, but didn't in the interest of seeing how it played out. His mom couldn't be more than sixteen, and he wasn't exactly sure when his parents had officially gotten together. He had just never thought of her being involved with somebody before James though, and he didn't like the thought of it either.

By the time Lily rose from the stoop and gave the strange boy a kiss on the cheek, it was getting dark out, and Harry wondered that she was walking home by herself through this kind of neighborhood. She does have a wand I suppose, he thought, but in any case, he would follow her home to see her safely inside at least. He turned and gave a smug look to the boy, who watched him trail after Lily at a distance, and then turned to his task.

As it turned out, Lily only lived two streets over, still in the dingy neighborhood, but on a slightly nicer street where the brick houses seemed just a little cleaner and in better repair. Once she was safely inside, Harry turned and stopped abruptly to find the boy in his face again.

"Who are you?" the boy asked angrily, somehow managing to keep his tone low and deadly. That too was familiar, but Harry still couldn't place it. Had he seen some Slytherin's parent at the train station? He couldn't remember.

"Harry," he said.

"And why are you following my girlfriend?"

"Oh, is she your girlfriend?" Harry asked innocently.

The boy glared, obviously upset. "Yes," was all that came out through gritted teeth.

"Thought you said you didn't talk to Gryffindors. Aren't you a Slytherin then with that kind of attitude?"

Harry knew he was pushing it, because he could visibly see the boy growing angrier.

"How old are you?" Harry asked, suddenly aware that perhaps this boy was of age and could use his wand.

"15," he said. "You?"

"15."

He squinted, trying to recognize Harry, as Harry had been doing to him all afternoon.

"You're not from Hogwarts."

"I am," Harry said, enjoying being so smug for some reason. He was still unsettled to see his mother, albeit a 15-year-old version of her, with someone other than his father.

"I've never seen you before."

Harry sighed. This was going to take forever, and his stomach was grumbling loudly. Deciding that if he was going to face the truth, he might as well tell it he said, "Lily's my mum. I came back in time from when I'm in school."

Unexpectedly the boy snorted loudly and shook his head. "And you're an alien from outer space too, is that it?"

"No, just me," Harry said.

"Oh, and you've come back to have a chat have you?"

Hands in his pockets now, not feeling threatened enough to keep them out to defend himself, Harry leaned on the metal fence in front of Lily's house and said, "I don't know what I'm here to do. The mirror said I was to learn the truth."

"What mirror?"

"The mirror of Erised. It's in the attic on the East side. It only shows us what we want to see, and I wanted to see the truth." He paused then and asked, "Who are you anyway?"

"You're Lily's son and you don't know?" the boy asked skeptically. Harry could tell he was trying to puzzle out if this was a joke or not.

"Well, you're not my dad," Harry said, pulling his hands out of his pockets and crossing them now.

Eyes narrowed and angry again the boy threw his hand down and turned around, taking a few steps down the path.

"I don't know who you are, but you're full of crap. Just get the hell out of here and leave my girlfriend alone."

"Yeah, all right then, I will if you stop kissing my mum. Stop holding her hand, stop sitting close to her, stop-" he would have continued, but he was on the ground, wondering what had happened. He looked up to find the boy over him, looking livid.

"No one tells me what to do!" he said angrily, throwing his hand down in front of him.

Harry reached up to feel a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth as the side of his face throbbed. He was a little shocked, and he could tell that the boy was too.

"Just... what do you want?" the boy asked, deflating a little and seeming more defeated than anything.

"Answers," Harry said, not getting up off the pavement as night finally settled over the street and the yellow streetlights came on. "Who are you and where does James Potter live?"

Stricken with the realization that Harry was implying that James was his father and had gotten Lily in the end, the boy shook his head silently. "Somewhere North... near the border of Scotland." He turned to go back home, or perhaps to roam the dark streets in thought, but Harry called out to him.

"What's your name?"

He turned, and with a sad look, said, "Severus Snape," and then he was gone, off into the night.

Reeling with a blow more powerful than the punch he had been delivered, Harry continued to sit on the pavement in awe. My mum and Severus Snape used to date each other. They were sweethearts.

Stomach grumbling, Harry stood up and brushed some of the dirt off of his red shirt and gray zip up hoodie. So far this was a miserable start to the morning, and he was forcefully reminded of all the times uncle Vern or aunt Petunia had made him sleep in the shed with the mower and rubbish bins there.

Rummaging through his pockets he found his magic Galleon and two Muggle notes. "Barely breakfast," he mumbled, wondering why the mirror couldn't have at least sent some money along with him.

Harry walked for what seemed like forever before he came to a Muggle coffee shop, and went inside to see what he could afford. Must be the neighborhood, he thought, when he was able to buy a coffee and a croissant sandwich for just a pound. Probably people around he can't afford more than that he thought, and was suddenly grateful, not realizing that perhaps over time prices changed.

Stomach full and happy, he sat at the small coffee shop table and wondered what he would do today. He didn't want to follow Snape around again, that was for sure. What he did want was to ask Lily some questions, and possibly see if he could find James, even though he lived North, according to Snape. Maybe the mirror will send me there, he thought, wondering how he could ask it to. He used the bathroom before he left, using the opportunity to run his fingers through his unruly hair and admire the bruise Snape had given him near his mouth. "Git," he muttered, heading out.

Outside he headed back towards Lily's house, thankful that he had committed her street name to memory, and tried to think of questions he would ask her when he got the chance. Now that he was here in the past he felt rather stupid, not really knowing what to ask. ‘Hey Lily, what's your favorite color,' just didn't seem appropriate.

Another thought struck him as he neared Lily's house again, and he paused down the street. Aunt Petunia must live here as well, and he definitely didn't fancy seeing her again. What if she answered the door? He shuddered. It had been aunt Petunia who had given him his latest concussion over the summer for not scrambling the eggs just right.

Deciding against knocking on the door, Harry waited down the street, hoping she'd come out. After an hour he grew bored however, and wondered if perhaps she had gone out while he was at breakfast. Thinking of Snape's house, he decided to try there first. Maybe he could weasel Lily's phone number out of him and find a phone to call her.

Harry was almost back to Spinner's End when he heard shouts, and decided to investigate. It sounded like teenagers. Down a street to his left, and then another street to the right, he found an empty dirt lot surrounded by metal fencing chest high. There was a decrepit old merry go round in the center, and a set of swings off to one side, a broken teeter-totter at the other end.

Two teenage boys with black hair took the swings and tried to throw them up over the bar. "See how they like to come here after it's wrecked," one boy laughed, and the other agreed by walking over to the merry go round and trying to break the wood by stomping his foot down hard on it.

"Nice one Padfoot!" the boy still at the swings said as he moved on to the second swing and threw it over the top bar several times. Harry's heart skipped a beat. Padfoot? With a closer look, he recognized Sirius, and knew immediately that the other boy must be James.

He looked around to see if anyone was watching them trying to destroy the park, and saw no adults, but spied a third boy with black hair falling into his eyes, peering out from around the corner a concrete building. Harry was surprised he hadn't seen him before considering he was in front of Harry's line of sight and between him and the park.

When Sirius finally succeeded in breaking a chunk off of the merry go round and laughing about it, it appeared that Snape had had enough as he appeared from around the building and ran towards the park.

"Get away from it!" Snape shouted angrily, hopping the metal fence and standing firm before the two boys. They both laughed and advanced on him.

"Look who it is, little Snivellus. Come to save your favorite little dump?" Harry cringed at how cruel Sirius sounded and at the sound of James' laughter. Was this what the mirror intended him to see?

"Oh, come on Padfoot, its not that bad! Some rusty nails there, some old bean cans rusting over there. I bet this is Snape's favorite place. Probably nicer than his house. This is where you take Lily on dates, isn't it Snivellus?"

Harry could see Snape's fists ball up at his sides then, and felt sorry for the whooping he was sure Sirius and James would receive judging by the bruise on his own mouth that Snape had put there the night before, but was surprised when the two Gryffindors advanced on Snape, continuing to taunt him.

"Maybe we'll just curse those pretty little lips shut and tie his entrails in knots. That will stop him from seeing Lily, won't it? Or at least from kissing her." James' face had changed from amusement to cruel and serious, and Sirius was cracking his knuckles.

Before Harry even expected it, they were on top of Snape, pinning him down and punching, and Harry was running for the park, climbing the fence and joining the fray without a second thought.

"What the hell?" James spat out as Harry heaved him off of Snape. Being the same age as James at this point, Harry was surprised at how heavy and how tall his father actually was, and cursed the Dursley's yet again for refusing to feed him three meals a day.

"Get off of him," Harry said. "Two against one isn't very Gryffindor of you is it?"

Sirius rose to stand next to his best friend, and Snape scrambled to his feet as well, wiping blood from his nose and mouth. Harry could tell from his eyes as he glanced briefly at him, that he wasn't sure if Harry was going to help or make the odds three against one.

"And what are you going to do about it punk?" Sirius laughed. His laugh already sounded like a bark, the way it did the last time Harry had seen him.

"I'm going to hex you senseless," Harry threatened, pulling his wand out of his jeans pocket.

James and Sirius looked at each other then and laughed heartily, Sirius even slapping his knee. "Oh yeah? And what about the Ministry? What're you going to do when they show up because you're under age?"

Harry crossed his arms, wand still in hand. "Oh I don't think they'll be coming today," he said, realizing suddenly that it was probably true. "They can only read wands registered to underage wizards. This one isn't registered and you're currently at the end of it." He pointed it at Sirius then, uncomfortable pointing it at his own father.

"Prove it," James said, trying for a deadly tone.

"If you insist." Harry waved his wand and levitated a small stone to eyelevel in front of James. They waited for a moment after Harry let the stone drop back to the ground, and nothing happened. No ministry, no aurors, no howlers, just silence in the heat of the day.

"Now, would you like to be on your way, or see what I can find to do to you that might amuse me." Harry didn't know what had come over him, speaking to his father in such a way, or Sirius for that matter, but seeing them double team someone had grated on his nerves. He supposed it was from all the years of being one against three or even four when he faced off with Dudley's gang.

Sirius spat on the ground, barely missing Harry's shoe. "We'll see about this. My father works for the Ministry." Then they sauntered off, refusing to look back.

When Harry was sure that they had gone down the street and turned the corner, he turned to see Snape giving him a close looking over.

"What?" Harry asked, pocketing his wand.

"Why aren't you registered?"

"I told you, I'm not from this time."

"And why did you help me if James is supposedly your father?"

Harry sighed. "Don't know. Didn't seem very fair to you did it? No? Didn't think so."

Continuing to brush off his clothes, Snape said, "And where does his highness from the future sleep at night?"

Harry shot him a glare then and said, "In the alley on the next street behind the rubbish bins." He heard the other boy mutter something and then stalk off.

Harry watched him go, but was surprised when Snape shouted back, without even bother to look over his shoulder, "Come on then alley cat! Suppose I have to let you stay the night for your trouble."

Considering the fact that the Slytherin didn't seem happy about it in the least, Harry wondered why he was offering at all. Was it a trick? He didn't know, but once again curiosity got the better of him, and he followed, Lily's phone number still at the forefront of his mind.

"Your parents won't mind then?" Harry asked as he caught up with Snape as they turned onto Spinner's End, and Harry noticed again that this was the dingiest street in the neighborhood, narrow and dirty with trash littering the gutters.

"My parents won't know you're here," he said smoothly. "Da's at work and mum's visiting relatives."

"Huh."

Harry followed him inside to find a darkly lit, distinctly Muggle house.

There was a threadbare yellow plaid couch, a tiny little TV, wood paneling around most of the living room, and worn brown carpet.

"Upstairs, before he gets home then," Snape muttered, wary of what another magical teenager thought of where he lived.

Harry followed him up through the narrow house and onto the first landing where there were only two doors.

"That one's the bathroom, but you can't use it unless I make sure he's not gonna see first. The other is their room."

Harry was about to ask where Snape's room was when the other boy reached up and pulled on a string hanging from the ceiling, revealing a set of unfolding, rickety wooden stairs leading to the attic.

"Not a word," Snape said, and Harry shook his head, thinking that an attic was nicer than a cupboard under the stairs. In the case of Snape's room especially, he thought as they climbed the ladder stairs into a brightly lit room with Quidditch posters hanging off the slanting ceiling and bright light flooding in through a semi-dirty window in the ceiling overlooking much of the neighborhood. There was a bed in the center where the ceiling was the highest, a Hogwarts trunk, a very small dresser, and a green rug.

"Nice," Harry said, not even noticing he'd said it until Snape looked over at him.

"No need to be sarcastic," the boy said, seeming ashamed of his personal space.

Harry shook his head, "I wasn't. It like it. Except the green... only a Slytherin would decorate the walls with the Irish National team."

Snape pointed to a spot on the rug next to the bed on the far side from the door where Harry would be out of view if anyone came up and said, "That's where you sleep. I'll bring up the food then we have to stay here until tomorrow when my da' goes to work. Wouldn't want to go back out now anyway. I bet Black ran home to get his mother's wand just so he could come use it against us."

Nodding, Harry decided that staying in the room was fine with him anyway because the heat outside had grown to sweltering over the course of the day, and he needed time to find out his mother's phone number in any case.

As promised, Snape brought a bag of crisps, two fizzy drinks and half a loaf of bread with cheese up and they ate in silence for a while. It wasn't long before they heard the front door open and close again and some muttering about the house being a mess coming from down stairs. Harry noticed that the boy looked pale as his father moved about the house below, but didn't say anything, and Harry decided that perhaps this wasn't the best time to bring Lily's number up.

As the sky outside grew darker, Harry decided that it was now or never. "Do you have my mum's number?"

Snape glared at him darkly.

"All right then, don't tell me."

"I don't have a phone." When Harry looked about the room, Snape sighed and said, "In the whole house. There's not a phone. Da' doesn't want to pay the bill."

"Oh." Harry nodded and not for the first time that afternoon felt very awkward, not only because he was in the past, but also because Severus Snape, the man who loathed him year round, was in his mother's past, and now Harry was seeing it all for himself.

They were quiet for the rest of the night, Snape reading a Potion's textbook from Hogwarts, and Harry contemplating what he'd done since he'd been here. Saw my mum, taunted Snape, been punched by Snape, (here he paused in his thoughts and sent a glare to the boy's back), slept with the rubbish, saved said git from my own git father and pratt Godfather, now sleeping in Snape's house. Yeah, this was some strange dream he was sure, either that or the mirror had a damn strange sense of humor.

At eight o'clock Harry rolled over to face away from Snape and fell asleep on the floor. Finally feeling comfortable in his own room again now that there wasn't somebody awake to scrutinize it, Severus put his book down and lay back on his own bed, staring at the moving Quidditch posters on the ceiling. He didn't know if the boy next to him was telling the truth or not, but he had saved him that afternoon in the park, and hadn't yet tried to seek revenge for the bruise on his face. He'd even got a scrape on his forehead for his trouble when he was scuffling with James.

With a last look at Harry, asleep on the floor, he checked to see that the trap door in the floor was locked from the inside, and rolled onto his side, not wanting to feel confused or anxious anymore that day.

When Severus woke up the next morning, the strange boy was gone, despite the fact that the trap door was still locked from the inside.

Growling with the absurd notion that sleeping on Snape's bedroom floor made more sense than sleeping standing up, Harry looked around, curious to see if he could find anyone he recognized.

The street was busy with afternoon shoppers, mainly parents taking their children from shop to shop for schoolbooks and robes. Odd, Harry thought. Had it been near the end of the summer when he'd stayed over with Snape? Must have been, he thought, heading off down the street.

He peered into shop windows as he mused about trying to get into the Potter Vault when he hadn't even been born yet. He supposedly looked a lot like James though, but did he have a vault of his own at this age? Harry nixed the idea, thinking that perhaps this was one thing in the past he should just let be.

"Excuse me." A red head brushed past him in a hurry, and if he hadn't known any better he would have said it was Ron rushing past to catch up with that girl down the street with curly hair. Harry watched closely as the boy, probably about 17, maybe older, caught up to her and a fight ensued. He was amused to hear her shouting "Well what did you expect Arthur? You can't buy a car and charm it with Galleons!" It was Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, although he wasn't sure if they were old enough to be married yet, although they did appear to be together.

"Pst."

Harry turned to find the source of the annoying noise, and spotted Snape in a small gap between the apothecary and the ice cream parlor, next to the rubbish bins. He hurried over and took note of the extra two inches of hair the boy seemed to have grown since last night.

"What are you doing here? I thought you'd gone back home."

Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"

"One day you're sleeping on my bedroom floor, and the next you had vanished. That was last summer!"

"Last - last summer? How old are you?"

"16. School starts in two days."

"Well that's new. As far as I knew I had gone to sleep on the floor and woken up standing in the middle of the street here."

Unsure if he's telling the truth or not, Severus looked up to the bruise on Harry's mouth that he had given him a year ago, along with the scrape on Harry's forehead from where James pushed him down to the ground.

"You're not 16?"

Harry shook his head.

"You really are from the future, aren't you? I thought I'd been dreaming."

"Well, as far as I know this could all be a dream," Harry said, deep in thought about the tricks the mirror in the attic could be playing on him.

"Tell me what's happened then, in the last year I mean. I'm here to find out about my parents and I haven't even gotten to talk to Lily yet."

Severus started to fill him in on the goings on of the past year, although he wasn't sure why. Perhaps just knowing that the boy before him was some part Lily, or maybe that he'd stuck up for Severus in the same way Lily often did made him feel obligated to help the time traveler.

"Potter... I mean James, has been on and on after Lily to dump me and start dating him instead. Says she should be with someone with Seeker skills who can make something of himself. Git thinks he's going to make it big and join the British National team. No matter that he lost the last game to Slytherin," Severus sneered.

Harry listened attentively as they walked down the street, peering into shops and occasionally stopping to let other people pass on the crowded cobbled street.

"Not to mention how Sirius, James and Peter have been hounding me to give up. They set my pants on fire at the end of the year in front of the entire school."

Harry swallowed hard. Hadn't that been what Snape had told him in his own time? The thing that had sent Harry up to the attic in the first place to vent his frustrations about all the lies and deceit?

"I'm sorry he did that to you," Harry said suddenly, feeling the need to blurt it out. "And what he did in the park too." He felt the need to blurt out that he wasn't the same too, as the elder Severus Snape always seemed to assume, but didn't, feeling too awkward as they entered the apothecary together.

"Do you think maybe you could set something up so that I can talk to Lily?" Harry asked quietly as Snape turned to gather ingredients for his school potions kit.

He turned and raised a brow. "Why? Are you going to tell her to marry James?"

Harry shook his head. "Not my place to. That already happens anyhow. I just want to know more about her when she was young."

"Hm." He turned to gather more gabberworm, and was about to respond that he would think about it, but when he turned again, Harry was gone.

He eyed the shop closely, thinking perhaps that the Gryffindor had gone to the other side to examine something, but there was no site of him, and he wasn't visible through the window on the street either. Where had he gone?

* * *

Whoa. Trying to catch his breath as he nearly stumbled forward and took a tumble down the grassy hill he'd just appeared on, Harry steadied himself and looked around. Twenty feet away, a pale boy with long black hair sat with his back to him, looking down at something intently enough to miss the traveler who had just appeared behind him.

Harry approached cautiously, breeze blowing gently through his hair, and noted that they were just outside of Hogsmead, not far from the shrieking shack. Quiet as a cat, he stood over the boy's shoulder and saw that Severus was drawing an intricate, lifelike picture of Lily, hair flowing freely in the breeze.

"I'm assuming some time has passed?" Harry asked, still feeling disoriented.

Severus startled, looking up quickly, and then let out a sigh of relief. "I was wondering if you'd show up again. It's been nearly six months."

Harry wanted to be surprised, but now knowing it was possible to jump here and there in the past, he wasn't. Down to business then, because who knew when he would jump next and to where. "And?"

"Lily and I had a fight yesterday." Harry noted the sadness in his voice.

"Oh. Was it bad?"

Snape's shoulders tensed visibly, and he ground out, "James was dangling me upside down and when Lily tried to stop him, I called her a name."

"Oh." Harry sat beside the boy on the grass, and leaned back. He didn't know what to say. Perhaps this was when she and James got together.

Severus bit his lip, and after a moment, asked, "Did she ever forgive me?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't know her."

Frowning, Severus looked over at Harry. "What do you mean you didn't know her?"

"She died. When I was a baby. So did James." He couldn't help but feeling empty thinking about it. That was why he was here, wasn't it? To feel less empty, to know the truth?

"Lily... dead? No, I'm sure you're mistaken. She's too talented for that."

With a sigh, Harry said, "I'm sorry. It happened when I was one."

Looking down at the picture he'd just drawn of his love, Severus shook his head, angry and sad, confused and lost. There had to be a way to stop it. He turned to ask how it had happened, but cursed loudly when Potter was gone, vanished to the future somewhere in time. He hated not knowing if he'd see him again before it was too late.

There had to be a way to save her, to make her safe. Somehow James and Lily getting together meant that Lily would die, no doubt by some foolish stunt James would pull in the future. He could just see the fool setting the house on fire or getting them into a wreck on that ridiculous motorcycle the dog boy drove around during the summer.

It was getting dark when Severus finally stood, determined to change the future in his favor, in Lily's favor. Lily Evans couldn't die... not if she became Lily Snape first.

"What the hell?" Harry asked. There was no one else around, and definitely no Snape, Lily, or James. A look in either direction told him there was no easy way out, or at least no way visible. "Great," he muttered, and noted the chill of the tunnel and the slight stench of something that was sure to be unsightly when he came across it.

With a final look in either direction, he picked the way he had originally appeared facing, and started to walk.

When he hadn't gotten anywhere but through more dark tunnel after five minutes, he let out a long, low sigh and began to contemplate his situation. He still hadn't been able to talk to Lily, and his only conversation with James ended with Harry threatening to hex him.

Suddenly an uncomfortable question popped into Harry's mind. Why had he been following Snape around anyhow? Aside from the fact that he had given Harry little glimpses into Lily's life, Snape wasn't his father, and he'd been sent back in time to see the truth about his parents. Maybe I'm just too cowardly to see more of the truth about my father, Harry admitted. Gleaning information through the eyes of Severus Snape had already given him a bad taste in his mouth about James, and perhaps Harry was nervous about witnessing more atrocious acts first hand. Somehow the image of James had morphed into the image of Dudley, chasing him down the street, stuffing him into rubbish bins, and locking him out of the house in nothing but pajamas while it snowed all night.

Harry tried to pull himself back to the present... or the past? He didn't know anymore, but he didn't like to think about the Dursleys.

He squinted in the dark tunnel and saw someone walking slowly up ahead. Harry hurried to catch up, wary of who it might be if not Snape, and kept one hand on the wand in his pocket, just in case. This was the time when Voldemort had been gathering death eaters to him after all, and Harry didn't want to chance ending up dead before he was ever even born.

"Hey," Harry shouted when he was close enough to catch dark hair and a black coat.

The man turned to reveal Severus. The scowl wasn't a good sign.

"You're still here," he said in what Harry imagined was the prequel to the man's famous deadly tone.

"Yeah, guess the mirror didn't think I was done mucking about the past yet." Harry frowned, and noted that some time had passed again because Snape looked older, although not too much.

"That means Lily is still dead?"

Harry nodded solemnly.

"She dated James for a while, but they broke up. I'd hoped that meant they didn't get married and she didn't die."

"Are you together again?"

"No." He looked away, ashamed.

"Is she even talking to you?"

"Some, but it's not like it was before. School is finished and I don't often get the chance to see her."

"You mean out for the summer?"

"We graduated. I'm almost 18."

"Oh." Harry fidgeted again as they walked.

"Where are we?"

"That is no business of yours."

Harry frowned. Until now Snape had been generally forthcoming with him.

"Where are you going?"

"To meet someone."

Heart frozen suddenly, Harry remembered that Snape had joined Voldemort in his youth before he turned spy for Dumbledore. Maybe that was the reason he never got back together with Lily.

"Did you apologize?" It was an innocent question, but it earned an explosion.

"Of course I apologized!" Severus spat out at him. Harry shrank back a little. There was the start of the Snape he knew, snarky, face sullen, and constantly angry all the time.

There was silence for a long while as they walked on and on through the darkened tunnel.

"I'll win her back, you just see if I don't." He looked to his right, but the 15-year-old boy was gone.

"Finally" he breathed, hoping that he had said or done something that would change the future, and that perhaps this time, Potter reincarnate wouldn't be back.

He continued to move forward to his meeting with the dark lord, the only one who could promise him for sure that Lily Evans would be spared in the coming fray.

‘She will be safe Severus, trust me, she will be safe.' The dark lord's words echoed through his head, as the still new black mark on his arm tingled, as he moved closer to the future ruler of the wizarding world.

Deciding that he was closer to Spinner's End than he was to Lily's street, he decided to try there first, unsure if the man even still lived at home, or if Lily still lived with her parents now that they had graduated. He didn't even know how far into the future he was from where he had last been.

Harry's heart sank. From the look of the boarded up windows of Snape's old house, it had been obvious that no one had lived there for some time now. He turned and walked in the other direction, checking the park on the way, in the vain hope that he would find someone there, but it too was empty, so severely vandalized that he doubted very much if any children were ever allowed to step inside the fence now.

Hands in his pockets, he wondered how Snape would be when he appeared this time, if he ever found him that was.

It was another ten minutes before he rounded the corner onto Lily's street, and was relieved to find the man he had spent years loathing sitting on his mother's doorsteps. He had to do a double take at first to be sure it was him, because his hair was suddenly shorter than Harry's, but the pale face and long nose told him that it was. He looked sullen as Harry approached, although he was looking in the other direction. This was more like the Snape he had known for so long, he mused, sullen, worn looking as if he'd seen far too much horror in his life, and looking irritable.

"Hey," Harry said quietly.

Severus looked up, face unhappy, but didn't say anything before looking back down the street again.

"Your hair is short," Harry observed, trying to get him to talk.

"She said she wouldn't date me if it was long," he said quietly, not looking back at Harry again.

"Are you back together then?" Harry bit his lip. He didn't want his head bitten off for asking the wrong question. He almost felt like a student in Potions again back at the school.

"She's with James," was his flat answer. He was angry and Harry could tell he had to work to control it.

"Then why are you on her doorstep?" Severus glared up at him. "You're here to show her your hair?"

"I'm here to change the future. She can't die. I love her too much." So that was it. He was determined that James and Lily wouldn't get together. Harry sighed and sat down on the stoop.

"You have to leave when she comes."

"Why?"

"Because if she sees you she'll ask questions, and get together with James."

Harry sighed again. "You want to erase me?"

"I want her to be alive, and us to be happy together."

"Might as well erase me," Harry finally concluded, images of so many people in his life hating him, pounding on him, trying to make him fail coming back to mind. He looked down to the fresh scars on the back of his hand, courtesy of Umbridge and her blood quill. "Not like I have anything to live for anyway. You probably still just think I'm a weird dream."

"I have wondered if I belong in Mungos."

"Maybe we all do."

Harry sat on the steps with Severus and noted again how much older he looked.

"How old are you now?"

"Twenty."

Harry shook his head. "Less than two days ago you were fifteen."

Severus eyed him again, but didn't say anything for a while, until, "Why don't you tell me about my future for once Potter?"

Sitting straighter, Harry wondered how much he would damage the past if he told him that. Perhaps for the first time, it had crossed his mind that if he really was in the past, he might be altering it in some unfixable way.

"What are you doing now?"

"What do you mean?"

"For work, what are you doing now?"

"I have applied to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts."

"Oh. Well, you're a teacher when I'm at school."

His expression softened a little then as he seemed to take some pleasure in that. Harry didn't want to clarify that he didn't teach defense though, perhaps because he didn't want the man's countenance to turn sour again.

"And?"

"And you'll be head of Slytherin some day."

"Horace Slughorn is the head of Slytherin house."

"Well, he is for now, but he won't be forever. I don't even know who he is."

"Hm. And the Headmaster?"

"Dumbledore. And head of Gryffindor is McGonagall. Flitwick is the head of Ravenclaw and Sprout is the head of Hufflepuff."

"Agatha Burbage is currently the head of Hufflepuff, and Henry Tilwit is the head of Ravenclaw. I had heard that Burbage had planned on retirement now that her daughter has graduated school however."

"See then, there's hope for you to be in Slytherin. Charity Burbage teaches at Hogwarts right now, and Henry Tilwit runs the OWL exams for the ministry once a year."

"You haven't taken OWLs yet," Severus noted, and Harry nodded.

"No, but my friend Hermione is crazy about studying for them, and she insisted we study all of the examiner's history so we could know the types of things they might give extra points for."

"Tilwit is a fan of fancy charms that have no practical use whatsoever. I would suggest something along the lines of the helwix charm."

Harry frowned now, quiet in thought. "Why are you telling me this if you plan on erasing me?"

Snape eyed him in thought, and said, "I don't know. You're here and I am nervous. I talk when I'm nervous."

Harry gave a laugh then and when Severus glared at him as if there was something wrong with him, Harry said, "Sorry, it's just that, in my time you don't seem to do that. I mean, you talk, but not like this."

"What do I talk like then?"

Harry straightened again and in as low a voice as he could muster, he imitated, "Potter, 20 points from Gryffindor for your incessant chatter. Detention Potter, for passing notes in class. Comb your hair Potter, you look like you were in a fight with a troll." Harry stopped then to gauge the reaction of his future Professor, and the man had one brow raised, a trademark Snape look if there ever was one.

"I do not sound like that in the future."

"Maybe not, but I've had detention with you enough times to know that it's not fair."

"If you got detention than you deserved it." Severus said in consternation. He would not be an unfair professor he was sure. He hated it when he was blamed for things he didn't do, and swore that he would never do that to others.

"See, a couple days ago you were 15 and today you're an adult. I can't win."

Severus stood up suddenly then, and said, "Quick, you have to go!"

Harry saw Lily coming down the street as the sky began to darken, a book in one hand and a grocery bag in the other, and allowed himself to be shoved into the bushes under the window.

"Stay down. I don't want her asking questions about you."

"Fine," Harry hissed, angry to be manhandled in such a way.

Crouching down, he watched anxiously as Lily approached, a small smile on her face as she saw Severus.

"What have you done to your hair?"

"Cut it short so you would take me back woman," he said. Harry frowned, thinking that perhaps he had been a little rude with the name, woman, but it appeared to be some sort of inside joke, because Lily didn't frown.

"And you think that's enough to make me take you back Severus Snape? You know I'm dating James. He's been talking about marriage."

Severus sighed deeply. "I would do anything for you. If I could never spend another moment apart from you, I would make it so. You know that." There was such a softness in his voice, that Lily wasn't the only one that was startled by it. Harry never imagined that his professor was capable of such a statement, let alone that type of tone.

When Lily didn't say anything, just stared into his eyes, Severus looked down to his shoes. "I've been so wrong, so many times in the past. I always succeed in taking us two steps back for every one we take forward. But if you'll have me, I promise never to do another thing to hurt you, lest my heart fall to pieces and never be repaired."

A lump was rising in Harry's throat now as he saw his mother step closer to Snape and place her hand on his cheek, brushing it gently, and he leaned into it. He had half a mind to jump out of the bushes and scream for her to stop, not to take him back, but for now Harry was still a solid, corporeal being, and that meant that he was still born in the future, and that she and James still got together.

"You've changed Severus," she said. "Somewhere along the way I thought I'd lost you, but you've come back."

He could hear the man's breathing hitch, and saw him lean into her and wrap her up in his arms. "Say you'll be mine," he whispered, almost so that Harry didn't hear it.

There was silence for a moment as the rest of the sun sank below the horizon and cast the street in darkness.

"I will Severus."

Harry was shaking his head as she unlocked the door and lead Snape inside by the hand. His own breath hitched as he emerged from the bush, covered by darkness, and peered in through the window into the living room, where a small lamp in the far corner was the only source of light.

Heart sinking further and further, he watched as she took Snape's coat off and began unbuttoning his shirt.

Harry slid down the side of the pavement, unwilling to watch his life change in such a way. Just another minute, and he was sure he'd be gone, erased from history for good. Feeling panic rise within him he worked to control his breathing, not wanting to go into a panic attack under the window.

He waited quietly for what seemed like forever, but in reality was only a few minutes, and when he hadn't yet disappeared, and was quite sure he was still conscious and alive, he crept back up to the window, where a small sob escaped his lips to see Lily and Snape on the couch in the midst of a very private and intimate act of love.

Before he knew what was going on, he was running, far and fast down the sidewalk, sneakers pounding like his heart as he darted away.

Breathing ragged, it was ages before he stopped. He'd gone over the river and into a busy part of the city before he could run no longer.

People staring as they passed by, Harry searched frantically for a newspaper vendor or a machine. Feeling disoriented he stumbled down the street, looking hysterically until he found one.

"Where is it, where is it?" he asked himself, eyes scanning the page in front of the vending machine glass. Finally he found the date there in the top corner. October 19, 1979.

Too upset to use his brain properly, he used his fingers to count out nine months. Nine months and 12 days from today, would be June 31, the day he was born.

Crying, Harry sank to the ground next to the machine, uncaring of who saw him there, wreck that he was. "I want to go back," he pleaded to thin air. "Please, take me back. I want to go home. Please, please... please."

He lay down on the sidewalk, but instead of rough pavement was met with dusty wood. Looking up, Harry found the lifeless mirror in the dark, dusty attic. He was home, and his life would never be the same again. He lay there and cried himself to sleep.

He sat up and stared into nothingness for a short while, glancing once at the silent mirror before turning to stare at the far attic wall again. What would James do in this situation? Who cares, he thought to himself, he's not my father anymore... he never was. James would go give Severus Snape a piece of his mind, Harry was sure, but now all he had to think was, what would Severus do? It was then that the realization hit him... he really didn't know what Severus Snape would do. As a teenager, Snape was sometimes a pushover, and sometimes had a fist as solid as iron. As a young adult he brooded and yet was a softie at heart, at least with Lily. And as an adult, he was often ruthless, or so it seemed to Harry... and everybody else.

After almost an hour of sitting in silence, Harry's bladder bade him to rise and find a bathroom. He didn't give a glance back at the silent mirror as he left, although he was sure it was watching him as he walked out, feeling weak and ill.

"Harry, where have you been?"

He had been walking in such a daze after using the bathroom that he hadn't realized he'd somehow made it back to Gryffindor common room.

"We've been looking everywhere for you! We were just about to tell Professor McGonagall you'd disappeared!" His eyes grazed over Hermione as she scolded him, and passed her by. Ron was saying something now too, and even Fred was asking him something, but Harry didn't hear a word as he climbed the stairs. There was only the sound of the door that Harry closed, and the beating of his heart in his ear as it nestled into his pillow, his only comfort in this world.

His final thoughts before falling asleep again, were that he had traipsed into the past and mucked about long enough that Snape should have remembered him... remembered Harry Potter... remembered his son. And yet, he had still been cruel and unkind to him for the past four years. Their fifth year had just started a month before, and this year didn't look as if it had any promise to be better than the last ones. Snape knew Harry was his son, and he still hated him. He had still left him with the Dursleys, and that was not a comfort, to know you were not wanted, by your own father.

Harry was in a fitful sleep when Ron came in a minute later.

* * *

"Something must have happened."

"But what? He looks fine."

"He's been gone for two days Ron. Nobody just disappears on Friday night and comes back Sunday afternoon without saying a word."

"Sure they do, Harry does."

Hermione was about to open her mouth again, but noticed Harry sitting up and staring across the room.

"Harry?" she asked tentatively.

"Huh?" He turned his head to see that she had sat down next to him on the bed now. She took in the appearance of his skewed hair and dusty clothes.

"Harry, where have you been?"

"Don't know," he said, wishing it were true, but how could he explain he'd been to the past? They'd never believe him... nobody would.

"You- you don't remember?"

Harry shrugged.

"Harry, you had detention with Mr. Filch and Ron said he overheard Professor Snape taunting you in the hall, and then you were just... gone."

"Went to the attic," Harry said.

"Until this morning?"

Harry stood up, tired and achy from so much sleep and too much hurt inside to explain to his friends.

"Where are you going mate?" Ron asked, standing now too, as if to block his escape if Harry decided to disappear again.

"Food," Harry grunted, indicating on his watch that it was time for dinner. He didn't bother to flatten his hair when he glimpsed himself in the full-length mirror on the way out, although somewhere in the back of his mind, he registered that if he had the chance to stand still in front of it long enough, he might see a Snape.

* * *

"Pay attention Potter!"

Harry jumped as his father slapped a ruler down on his desk. He had been staring off into space again. Hermione had already gotten on his case several times over the last couple days about not paying attention in class, and he'd overheard her and Ron talking with Fred and George about what must be wrong with their friend. Harry didn't care. Let them think what they wanted.

He looked up into the eyes of his father, and noticed the surprise in the older man's eyes at the emptiness of his own. "If I have to bring you back to the present again Mr. Potter, you will suffer a severe loss of points and detention, do I make myself clear?" His voice wasn't sharp, but the words cut Harry... back to the present. He did know, and he didn't care.

Harry swallowed hard and nodded, casting his eyes down to his cauldron. It was near the end of class and he hadn't even started yet. Hermione nudged him and he threw a couple of ingredients into the cauldron, not caring if he finished before class was out... or at all.

* * *

"Harry, come on. You're going to be late for practice." Fred nudged him as he headed towards the portrait hole with his Quidditch gear on and broom in hand.

Eyes glazed over as they frequently had been over the past few days, Harry looked up and tried to figure out what it was that his friend had just said, because he hadn't been listening.

"Oh," he said, seeing the broom. It was Thursday afternoon, and they had practice. "I- I'm not going. Let Ginny play for me."

"But you know the rules. If you miss a practice you can't play in the game next week."

"I know," Harry said. "Tell Ginny she can play for me. I- I won't have my head in the game." Harry stood up and moved off, leaving Fred and a few others gathered there looking dumfounded. Harry had never missed a game yet.

* * *

"Potter!"

Harry didn't jump this time, he just looked up into the angry eyes of his father, who towered over him looking venomous.

"Did I not warn you that if you failed to pay attention you would be receiving a heavy loss of points and detention?"

He looked down to his halfhearted page of notes and didn't say anything.

"Detention then, tonight at seven and twenty points from Gryffindor!" He heard the swish as his father stalked away, angrier than ever. What would James do? He would say something about it being unfair, Harry was sure, but he wasn't James's son anymore. Not knowing what his real father would do, Harry remained where he was, feeling emptier than he had ever felt before. What do I do? What do I do?

* * *

Harry's arms ached from scrubbing the dungeon floors with the hard bristled brush. Chores and hard work were so ingrained in him that it didn't matter what his father would have done, Harry just did it. How could he live with the Dursleys and not jump to do what he was told to do if it involved manual labor? He could tell the wooden back of the brush he held would leave calluses on his already rough hands, and groaned as he stopped scrubbing for a moment to pull out several splinters. When he was done, he got caught up in not knowing what to do again, and just sat there on his knees feeling lost, eyes glazed over. He didn't notice his Potions Master enter the classroom behind him, arms crossed and looking poisonous.

"Slacking are we Mr. Potter? I cannot leave the room for but five minutes and I come back to find you staring off into space?"

Harry looked up, arms still down at his sides, to see the man glaring down at him. He picked the brush up and started scrubbing again, although not as vigorously as before, his mind still somewhere else.

"Oh how very alike your father you are Potter, unwilling to put in even the tiniest hint of effort. It is a wonder you are even able to lift a fork to your mouth to feed yourself."

Something of the old Harry stirred in him then, a burning sensation in his chest. It felt of anger and injustice, and it felt good to feel something other than numbness, but he did not know what to say.

"I know nothing of my father. I don't know what he'd do." He knew his words came out bitterly, but they felt mellowed to him, as if he couldn't muster the energy to be properly angry.

"Let me enlighten you then Potter. Your father was a worthless, lazy, good for nothing, bully who enjoyed picking on-"

"YOU ARE MY FATHER YOU STUPID IDIOT! DON'T YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING?" Harry looked around, unsure how he had ended up standing with his fists clenched, chest heaving hard and heart pounding in his ears. He slumped down to the floor, totally out of sorts, unaware of the curious look that was replacing the angry one on the face of the man above him.

As Severus Snape watched his student slump down to the stone floor, a memory came flooding back to him, of a forgotten traveler through time, standing up to his father in a concrete park near Spinners End. A traveler popping in and out of his life to hear any details he could get of his family... a boy he wanted to erase because it would ensure Lily's safety.

"It was you. I thought it had all been a dream." Severus' voice was quiet, but reflected his awe.

"No... just your stupid son." Harry scrambled to his feet then and ran from the room. He ran from the Dungeons, he ran from the Great Hall, he ran clear out of the castle. It wasn't until Harry was well off of school grounds... on the hill near the Shrieking Shack in fact, where he had once appeared to his 16-year-old father, that he collapsed in a heap in the darkness, and breathed in the deep, fresh air.

His father hadn't known. He hadn't left him with the Dursleys to be starved and beaten and kept in a cupboard intentionally. And it wasn't all a dream.

He lay back on the grass in the too cold October air and stared at the stars. He had run again. Isn't that what the mirror had first accused him of? ‘And if you don't like what you learn? What will you do with the knowledge imparted to you? Will you run from it? Or will you finally embrace what you have been missing for so long?' The calm male voice played again in his ear. He would have to make a decision, regardless of what his father would do.

James Potter was courageous. He would stand up to the challenges presented.

Severus Snape seemed to be courageous as well though, Harry pondered, the smell of the dewy grass lulling him into a sense of calm security. Hadn't Snape set out to do everything possible to win Lily back, despite the fact that her supposed son with James Potter kept popping into his life saying that Lily would never be his? That was courage, to pursue something so earnestly that every person wished you to fail at.

Still unsure of his decision, Harry picked himself up off of the grass and began the slow walk back up to the castle. He had a lot to think about, including the fact that he no longer felt so numb... just different.

He kind of liked the way young Severus looked with his hair long enough to fall into his eyes. Lily liked it too, at least until Severus was in his twenties, and that was good enough for Harry.

Hermione protested as expected when she asked Harry to sit down before Saturday's game (which he wouldn't be playing in since he missed practice the week before), and he refused.

"But why won't you let me cut it? I cut Ron's last night so it would be out of his face when he played!"

"Maybe I want it long," he said quietly, admiring his face in the mirror he stood in front of in his dorm with Hermione behind him. He had not noticed the similarities between him and Severus before, and why would he without reason to. But now that he had spent hours staring at himself, he knew that there was no mistaking whose son he was.

"I just don't understand why you'd want it to. You know Mrs. Weasley will make you cut it at Christmas time. Don't you remember how she ambushed Charlie when he came home for Christmas last year?"

Harry turned his head to the side and was surprised to see that his hair had grown an inch just in the past few minutes. Hermione's eyes widened as she noticed as well.

"My father's hair was long when he was my age."

Hermione frowned and crossed her arms. "I've seen pictures. He had short messy hair just like you've always had."

With the first genuine smile he'd had in weeks, Harry turned and put a hand on Hermione's shoulder. "Maybe you've been looking at the wrong pictures. My father had long hair."

Grabbing his sweat jacket, he left her there alone in the dormitory as he headed off towards the game, hair growing as he went. No wonder aunt Petunia had had such a fit when she cut all of Harry's hair off and it had grown back overnight.

* * *

Ginny Weasley flew out onto the field in Harry's place, and Severus' throat caught from his seat in the staff stands high above the Quidditch pitch. Where was the boy? An awful thought occurred to him then, that perhaps the boy had slipped from time again and would not appear until years later, but he fought hard to dismiss this notion and turned to Minerva at his left.

"What has happened to your Seeker?" He couldn't bear to call him Potter any longer now that he knew the truth. The boy was his. And realizing this notion again, as he so often had over the past week, he sat in awe for a moment, until Minerva spoke and gained his attention again.

"Harry missed a practice last week, and as is policy, he is not allowed to play in the game this week."

"Why did he miss?"

She raised a brow at him. "Trying to spy out weaknesses in my team Severus? Tsk tsk. You should know by now that loose lips sink ships. If you wish to know at the end of the season I'll tell you then." With a smile she turned from him, and didn't notice the man's face sink. He excused himself and began a brisk pace towards Gryffindor stands, where he scanned for any sign of his son. The fifth year Gryffindors sat in the back row, and there was a fifth year from another house, but no Harry. His eyes scanned the group again, and he squinted to find that he did not know the strange boy from any other house. Moving closer, he stopped when he realized that it was Harry after all, with hair that fell into his eyes, and most of the way down the back of his neck. Harry threw his head to the side to keep the hair from his face, and Severus' heart pounded. He left the pitch at a brisk pace and did not return.

I have a son. I have a son. I have a son. He would make this night to his grave if he didn't calm the beating of his heart.

In his quarters, he recalled Harry's face again. He had been smiling, and this lifted Severus' heart enough for him to calm. It was disheartening to know that the boy had been so distraught to find out who his real father was.

"What do I do now Lily?" he asked to thin air. "He is mine, but surely I cannot claim him as my own. No one would believe you loved me enough to be mine." And then, as it did every time he thought about the loss of his love to Potter, Severus' heart fell once more to the very bottom of his stomach. She was mine, and he made her his.

"What do I do Lily?" he asked again. "Tell me what to do."

* * *

Nobody liked Harry's hair, except Ginny.

"You look like him you know."

Harry raised his brow at her. "Who?"

"Your dad."

"How do you know?"

She pointed to the head table at Snape, whose hair fell into his eyes, just as Harry's did. He had allowed Hermione to shorten it just a little, because he could no longer bear that it tickled his nose.

Harry was quiet as he stared into Ginny's eyes. "You know?" he asked softly, for he had told no one yet, except his hint to Hermione about looking at the wrong pictures.

"Mum's been swearing for years that she once saw a boy just like you in Diagonalley talking to Professor Snape."

"And from that you pieced together I'm his son?"

She took his hand and said, "You were gone for two days, and when you'd come back you said you were in the East attic. But Ron had checked and you weren't there. Then you were so moody and when you grew your hair out you seemed happier, and Professor Snape seemed moody. I wasn't sure what to believe except that you look so much like him Harry."

Harry sighed. He had been happier for a short while after he'd acknowledged that he was Snape's son, but in the last few days he felt himself slipping back into uncertainty again. His father had done nothing in the last weeks to reveal to Harry that he wanted him. In class the man never looked or spoke to him, and he seemed to avoid him in the halls. He wasn't even at the Quidditch match that Harry missed.

"Are you all right?"

Harry shrugged. "He doesn't want me you know. I went back in time and he tried to erase me. And when I told him I was his son, he never said another word to me."

Ginny scooted closer to him and wrapped an arm around his back. "I want you. Ron and Hermione and our whole family want you. You might as well change your hair to orange and short again, because mum also said in the letter that regardless of whose son you are, you're part of our family."

Harry took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. "Thanks Ginny," he said, and she squeezed his hand again.

"But I'll still understand if you want me to become Mrs. Harry Snape someday."

He turned to see a mischievous grin on her face, and hugged her hard, ignoring the stares of the people around them. Nobody saw the silent tears roll down his face, but Ginny knew they were there. She was the only one that understood.

* * *

"Gonna grow a hooked nose next Potter?"

People laughed and Harry frowned as he passed by a group of seventh year Ravenclaws that had been picking on him since he'd grown his hair out.

"Go on then, deduct points from us for being rude to our Potions Master!" The group laughed again and Harry moved on. He passed the real Potions Master of Hogwarts a few steps down the hallway, who had to have heard the jeers towards his son, and yet looked as if he would do nothing about it. Hurt at the notion that the man wouldn't even stand up for him, Harry hurried on to the library, where he couldn't concentrate on his homework.

* * *

"Mr. Potter, please sit down."

Harry peered up at his Head of House as he plopped down into a chair in her office. What had he done now? He couldn't think of anything, and despaired at the thought that he would prove to be even more of a disappointment to his father, for that was the only reason he could think of that his father had yet to acknowledge him... had yet to claim him as his own. Harry's stomach bubbled uncomfortably as Professor McGonagall considered him carefully, and Harry's last thought before she spoke was that he hated how easy it had been for him to slip into depression once again. His comfortable mood of acceptance had lasted such a short time.

"I'm worried about you Mr. Potter, and frankly, so are some of your friends."

"Yeah?" he asked, feeling melancholy over the whole thing, and not being able to make himself properly angry that apparently his friends had dragged McGonagall into this.

"You have been moody, withdrawn, and not yourself lately. Your grades have slipped, especially in Potions, and you've been missing Quidditch practices."

Harry swallowed hard and looked down at his hands. She leaned against her desk and her tone softened a little. "Is there something you wish to tell me Mr. Potter? I know we haven't spoken much about your personal life in the past, but I am here if you need to talk."

With a deep breath to steady himself, Harry shook his head. He wanted to tell an adult, but he really couldn't. He'd already been judged by his new hairstyle by the entire school and had been punished accordingly by members of other houses with cruel pranks and jokes. Surely McGonagall wouldn't understand either.

"Potter?"

"No Professor," he said quietly, swallowing back his tears. Having long bangs to fall into your face had advantages, he thought secretly. Nobody could see the torment in his eyes. "There's nothing I want to tell you."

"Well, if you're sure. But I want you to know that if this continues, you will need to speak with the Headmaster. I would hate to see you lose your position on the Quidditch team, but if you keep missing practices, then I'll have no choice. Hogwarts policy is that if you miss eleven practices in a term then you are to be suspended for the remainder of the year."

As he sat there, Harry tried to feel broken up at the prospect of losing his position as Seeker on the team, but he couldn't. He couldn't bring up a single feeling either way about it.

He stood then, and shook the hair out of his eyes so that he could clearly see his professor. "Take me off the team then," he said, eyes looking dead, and then he walked away, leaving her standing in her office looking uncertain.

He pushed past Draco Malfoy in the hallway, but kept his head down and kept going. He didn't look back to see that Draco looked as if he wanted to taunt him, but upon seeing how sunken his shoulders were, withheld, and stared on in wonder at Harry's retreating back.

Harry didn't care anymore... he just couldn't. It hurt too much to care that his father hated him. Would he just cease to exist if he just didn't care about anything anymore? He hoped so. With this thought, Harry went to sleep in his bed, and hoped not to wake up again.

* * *

Harry lay awake in the middle of the night. Why me? Why does death ignore me so, when I have asked to be taken away from this place? Anger burned in the pit of his stomach. He hated his life.

"Where are you going?" Ron sat up groggily as Harry jammed his shoes onto his feet angrily.

"Kitchens."

"At three in the morning?"

"I'm hungry, ok Ron?" Harry practically ran from the room, feeling suddenly as if he needed to escape his own skin.

The castle was cold and dark, and it calmed him some, but not enough. He was mad at the mirror for accusing him of always running from his problems. Ha, as if he had a choice. There was no way out of this. His father hated him, his friends didn't understand, and Harry just didn't want to do it anymore.

Get to the kitchens, get to the kitchens. He repeated it over and over, the only words that were keeping him from falling to the ground right there and breaking down, his mind finally lost to the hurt he felt inside. He didn't know what he was going to do once he got there, but he would form a plan, and it would all be over. Get to the kitchens.

Twice on Harry's way down through the castle, stairwells changed directions on him and he had to find a new route. It was like the castle didn't want him to find a way down, but he was determined, and soon found himself standing before the portrait of the ticklish pear, which would lead him to the kitchens.

Harry reached up and tickled the pear, but the portrait wouldn't open up. He tried again, and then once more, and was so frustrated that he hit the stupid painting. "Come on!" he shouted. "Open up!" He tried again, and again nothing happened.

Reaching up to tug on his hair in despair and frustration, Harry realized that he didn't have his wand on him in order to blast the thing open, and resorted instead to kicking and punching the portrait with all of his might. His hands and feet hurt from the effort, but he pressed forward, sure that this would convince the portrait to open lest it be destroyed.

"Argh!" He hit it again and again, shouting out in frustration, when suddenly a strong pair of arms grasped him from behind, and held tight, refusing to let go.

Looking up, Harry found his father's dark eyes, and locks of dark hair. Harry pushed and struggled against him, hitting his chest and begging to be released, but Severus never loosened his grip. Finally Harry gave up, and sobbed into his father's dark shirt.

"Don't disappear on me again Harry," his father whispered into his ear. "I want you to stay this time.

"You want to erase me, you always have."

Severus was silent as he held tight to his son, determined that he should do himself no more harm. He had watched for weeks now as his son had deteriorated and fallen further away from his life, until he was nothing but a shell of a boy. "That was before I knew you were my own."

Finally Harry could stand it no longer, and began to sob full force, unable even to stand any longer as he let his father hold him up.

"I don't know what to do anymore," he choked out. "Tell me, tell me please."

Severus Snape carded his fingers through his son's dark hair. "Be my son. Just be Harry. I'll take care of the rest."

Sucking in a deep gulp of air and shuddering in the suddenly too cold hallway, Harry closed his eyes and wished to fall asleep in the warm, tight embrace. He would take hold of the future and make it his own, with his father at his side. No more running. Just tomorrow. And it was then that Harry knew he could not promise himself a life without hurt or despair or uncertainty, but he did know one thing for certain: he looked forward to seeing the sun rise on tomorrow, and each day thereafter.

"Tell me again," Harry said, barely able to keep his eyes open as he held onto his father's robes for dear life.

"By my son Harry. Be my son."