At 8:30 the next morning, Severus was reclining in bed enjoying a surprisingly good full English breakfast. He had helped Harry into the bathroom twenty minutes earlier where Harry was currently (by the sound of the singing, anyway) enjoying a shower. Madam Pomfrey had brought in a newspaper with Severus' breakfast and he was reading the headlines, completely distracted by the moving black and white photographs and the journalistic style more suited to the turn of the century—the 20th Century, that is—than to modern day Britain. The front page featured a photo spread of the entire "Wizangamut," whatever the heck that was. To Severus, the assembled group resembled the surviving members of the Oxford graduating class of 1940. The moving photo showed more than one of them nodding off then jerking awake to wave blearily at the camera.

Severus used his last square of toast to mop up some runny egg yolk and was brushing the crumbs off of his borrowed bathrobe (if Harry ever got out of the bathroom he'd get dressed again) when the infirmary door opened and a tall stranger entered, trailed by a small boy of three or four years. The man was wearing black robes with what Severus now recognized as the Hogwarts crest over khaki pants and hiking boots. He had nondescript brown hair, worn long and clipped at the base of his neck, and moved with an air of familiarity with his surroundings. He obviously was expecting to find Severus in the room for he looked around upon entering and hesitated only long enough upon seeing him for Severus to know that here again was a former student, one who knew a different Severus in a different time. The child following him had sandy hair and a plump, friendly face. He was wearing a pair of short denim overalls over a shirt with wide blue and white stripes and was clutching a worn grey plushie.

"Professor," said the man in greeting, extending his hand and shaking Snape's firmly. Severus' opinion of the man rose a notch at the firm handshake and the direct eye contact, even though it was plainly obvious that the man was vaguely uncomfortable. He nodded at the man and smiled at the boy, waiting for the inevitable introductions.

"Neville Longbottom," the man continued. "I'm the Herbology Professor here at Hogwarts. This is my son Frankie."

"I suppose this is a reintroduction?" asked Severus.

"It is," replied Neville, smiling. Ice broken, Neville looked somewhat less uncomfortable in his presence.

"Hello, Frankie," said Severus as the boy took half a step sideways to stand behind his father's right leg.

"Hullo," said the boy in a small voice, peeking out from behind his dad.

"That's an interesting horse you have there," said Severus, eyes straying to the gray and white rear end of a dappled horse, the only part of the toy that was showing from where the boy had it wedged between his side and his arm.

"'T's not a horsie," whispered the boy, extracting the toy from where it was wedged and holding it out to show Severus.

"Ahhh, no, it's not," agreed Severus, noting the lion's head and the wings. "A hippogriff, then?" He glanced at Neville for confirmation, noting the surprised expression on the man's face.

"Mythology is one of my pastimes," explained Severus as the small boy nodded and tucked the toy back next to his body. Neville sat down on the bed across from him and Frankie settled between his legs, facing Severus.

"I've been recruited to help Ron and the kids out at your house today," said Neville. "With the yard work," he clarified with a smile when Severus looked perplexed. "Anyway, I've popped over there already to take a look around and have a few questions for you before we get started."

"Popped…" repeated Severus, turning the word and its meaning over in his mind and wondering if old Miss Hawthorne next door, who had a penchant for spying out her kitchen window into his garden, had witnessed any "popping" and was now lying comatose on her kitchen floor. He shook off that disturbingly pleasant thought. "Questions. About my gardens, I take it? I really only suggested that the Potter boys mow the grass…"

Neville held up a hand. "No, really, Professor, it's my pleasure. Your gardens are beautiful—the most wizard-like Muggle gardens I've ever seen, in fact. The roses are superb! Do you do your own cross-breeding?"

And they were off. They were still deep in discussion about composting, pH levels and rose cultivation when Madam Pomfrey led Harry back into the room fifteen minutes later. Frankie, who had been behaving himself admirably amid the boring horticulture discussion, talking quietly to his plushie, caught sight of the two.

"Uncle Harry!" he exclaimed. "Aunt Poppy!" He looked up at his father, silently asking permission, and Neville nodded. Frankie virtually skipped over to the bed where Poppy had settled Harry, climbing up without invitation.

"What's wrong with your eyes, Uncle Harry?" he asked, patting the mask on Harry's face.

"I had an accident yesterday," said Harry, wrapping his arms around the child and giving him a raspberry on the cheek. Frankie giggled and wiped at his cheek. "Aunt Poppy will take the bandages off in a few hours then I'll be fine."

"What kinda accident?" asked Frankie, not giving up. "Did a potion 'splode in your face?"

Harry grinned. "No, not a potion."

"Uncle Harry needs some rest," said Poppy, picking up Frankie and giving him a hug.

"Uncle Harry needs a drink," muttered Harry. Neville smirked and Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Let's get moving, Frankie," said Neville, standing up. "We can come back and see Uncle Harry when he's better.

"And James an' Albus an' Lily?" asked Frankie, trotting over beside Neville. "And Kreacher too?"

"Creature?" asked Severus when the two had disappeared out of site and Poppy had returned to her office.

"Our house elf," explained Harry.

"House elf? What exactly is a house elf?" Elves to Severus were either Father Christmas' helpers or very intense human-like beings in J. R. R. Tolkein's works.

"House elves are magical creatures. More than one hundred of them work here at Hogwarts," said Harry. "Would you like to meet one?" Not waiting for an answer, he snapped his fingers and called "Winky!"

"Winky?" Severus repeated weakly just before Winky the house elf popped into the room.

"Master Harry Potter sir," said Winky, bowing low enough to touch her forehead to the floor. Given the size of her nose, Severus was sure that it had to be squashed flat against the hardwood. "You is needing Winky, sir?" She stood back up and got her first real glimpse of Harry. "Oh, Master Harry Potter, you is hurt. Your eyes!" She took a few wavering steps toward Harry, staring at the bandage-like mask over his eyes.

"I'm fine, Winky. Madam Pomfrey will remove the bandages later today and I'll be out of here. I called you up here to meet a special visitor." He waved his hand in the general direction of Severus' bed.

Winky turned slowly around, eyes finally resting on Severus. She began a polite greeting but her mouth froze open and her already huge eyes widened.

"Headmaster Snape!" she squeaked before dropping to the floor and prostrating herself before him.

"She's flat on the floor, isn't she?" Severus lifted his head to look at Harry, who tried but could not hide the smirk on his face.

"Quite," answered Snape, continuing to stare with fascination and a bit of horror at the tiny creature. "Care to explain?"

Harry pretended to check his watch which, of course, he could not see. "Let's give it a couple more minutes…."

By this time, Winky had gotten to her feet and had shot a delighted toothy smile back at Harry before disappearing with a loud crack.

"It might help to know that the house elves consider you to be a minor deity. They are always completely loyal to the current headmaster, whoever that may be, and during your short time as headmaster you somehow managed to win not just their loyalty but their devotion as well. If you do get your memories back, we'd all like to know exactly what you did…"

A sharp crack, followed by a quick sequence of more cracks, reminding Severus of popping popcorn, interrupted Harry.

"I'd give away my best racing broom to see this," chuckled Harry as between his bed and Severus at least twenty house elves appeared and dropped to the floor in supine positions, heads facing Severus.

"You'd think this would spark my memory," commented Severus, dryly as Poppy appeared in her office door.

"Oh my!" she exclaimed. "I forgot about the house elves! I always did wonder what you did…"

After Harry had explained to the house elf contingent that Headmaster Snape had lost his memory and was here at Hogwarts working to restore it, they consented to go back to the kitchens but not until each and every one of them personally thanked Severus for his service to Hogwarts. A few managed to kiss his hand before he sat on it.

"Who names these creatures?" he exclaimed when the last one had popped away. "Binky? Knobby? Bunko? They sound like reindeer names!"

Harry laughed. "They're not pets, Severus. Despite their mishandling of the English language, they're really quite intelligent. They name their own children, of course," he said. "They seem to love alliteration and have a fondness for rhyming."

Severus shook his head. "I was wondering something else, about the young man who was in her a few minutes ago."

"Neville?" asked Harry. "I've known him forever. What would you like to know?"

"He's the young man mentioned on the Chocolate Frog card? The one that beheaded the snake?"

"Yes, he is," replied Harry. He loved the depiction of Neville in that card, wielding the great sword of Gryffindor like it was made for his hands alone.

"There was something there…beneath the surface," said Snape. "He was polite—confident even, professional. But I had the distinct feeling that he was making an effort to see me with different eyes."

"Older eyes," said Harry, unconsciously rubbing his own beneath the mask. "It's easier to forgive your professors when you have a dozen or more years of growing up and raising your own kids under your belt."

"Ahhh. So there is something to forgive, then?"

The smile that came to Harry's face at Severus' statement was more wry than amused.

"Have you ever heard of a boggart, Severus?"

"Of course," answered Severus. "It's a household sprite—thought to be responsible for all sorts of mischief and misfortune." He glanced over at Harry and sighed. "You're about to tell me that boggarts are real, aren't you?"

Harry laughed. "A real magical boggart is a kind of shape-shifter. They take on the shape and appearance of what a person most fears. In third year, our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had us face a boggart he'd trapped. It turned into you when Neville faced it."

Severus remained silent and Harry finally spoke.

"Neville was pants at Potions. Well, he was pants in your class anyway. He was terrified of you and was so nervous in class that he made a lot of mistakes and was constantly melting or blowing up cauldrons. His name eventually became a verb—though the meaning of 'to Longbottom' something has changed over the years."

"Oh? How so?" asked Severus, his voice carefully neutral.

"Well," answered Harry, "To 'Longbottom' something originally meant to mess it up in a big way—like if you tried to transfigure a pincushion into a porcupine and ended up with a blast-ended skrewt instead…"

"I won't even ask," commented Snape dryly.

"But eventually," continued Harry, speaking louder to drown out Snape, "the meaning changed because Neville changed. Now, to 'Longbottom' means to do something insanely brave, like to tell Hermione that you truly believe that house elves enjoy lives of servitude…"

"Someday you can explain what that means," said Severus, standing up as Madam Pomfrey came back into the room.

"We're expecting the specialist from St. Mungo's any minute now."

"From Pediatrics?" asked Harry.

"Yes, from Pediatrics, Harry," said Poppy with a certain amount of fond disapproval. "And stop trying to rile up Severus. I know you're bored but if you can't behave yourself for a few more hours I'm mixing Dreamless Sleep in your pumpkin juice."

"You wouldn't!" mock-protested Harry. "It would be…well…medically unethical!"

"What would be unethical?" asked Stuart, entering the infirmary with the Pediatric healer just as Harry spoke. He looked from Severus to Poppy to Harry.

"Me spiking Harry's pumpkin juice with Dreamless Sleep potion," answered Poppy. "He's getting bored and there's nothing worse than a bored Auror."

Stuart laughed and shook his head. His companion, a woman of Poppy's age with wild curly gray hair and large owlish glasses, walked forward to greet Poppy and introduce herself to Severus.

"Mr. Snape, I'm Ardelle Youngblood. I'm a specialist in behavioral correction with St. Mungo's pediatric department."

"Behavioral correction?" asked Severus, shaking her hand. "You make it sound like I can consciously control these accidental magical outbursts."

"You can't yet," said Healer Youngblood, "because you don't know how. My job is to teach you how to manage these outbursts while you regain control of your magic." She looked Severus over up and down. "And you have a decided advantage over most of my patients…you have a wand, do you not?"

"I had one," shot back Severus. "But it was removed from my possession yesterday." He glanced over at Harry. "By Mrs. Granger-Weasley, that is. I think she thought I was a menace with it."

Healer Youngblood laughed, a deep, genuine laugh, the kind that was so infectious that even Harry, who had been on the receiving end of that "menace," smiled.

"I have his wand," put in Poppy. "It's in my desk. Do you need it now?"

"Please, Poppy," said the Healer. "We'll need it a bit."

"This might be a good time to put a shield up between me and Severus," said Harry, pulling the covers over his head and sinking down into his mattress.

Healer Youngblood shot him an amused look, which of course Harry could not see. She shrugged and faced Severus again.

"I've been told you have no memory of your magical life. However, at one time, you learned and used a great many spells. You may have forgotten the incantations and wand motions for these spells but they remain imprinted on your magic. In short, you haven't lost the ability to perform those spells—you've simply forgotten the words and motions."

"How is that different than forgetting the spells?" asked Severus, eying the dark wand Poppy was holding. She'd just come back into the room and stood against the door near her office.

"Someone who never learned the 'Incendio' charm, for example, would have to memorize the incantation and the wand motion. But knowing the incantation and the wand motion does not mean one can perform the spell. Children must practice the spell, concentrating on the intent—to set something on fire—and the object itself."

"You teach children to set things on fire?" asked Severus, eyes raised in alarm, doubtlessly thinking of his own daughter who was poised to begin her magical education.

"Oh. Perhaps that was a poor example," backtracked Healer Youngblood. "But surely you understand. While a child would actually have to learn all the elements of the spell, you, Mr. Snape, will only need to learn the words and wand motion, at least for spells you learned in the past."

"Will they all be as powerful as the Lumos that hit me yesterday?" asked Harry. He'd given up on his pretense of hiding beneath the covers.

"At first—very likely," replied the healer. "If he were a child, we would teach him to control his emotions to suppress the accidental magic. However, Severus' problem is not likely caused by emotional immaturity…" She looked sharply toward Harry as he suppressed a snort. "No, I believe that the use of his wand yesterday has unleashed some of this imprinted magic."

"Do you have a recommendation, then?" asked Poppy, bopping Harry a bit more than playfully on the head with Severus' wand then sitting down next to him on his bed.

"Hey!" protested Harry. "What was that for?"

"Are you 11 or 38?" she muttered.

"I do," answered Healer Youngblood. "Mr. Snape needs to unleash as much magic as possible, using his wand. I suggest supervised and direct practice on safe targets—out of doors. Perhaps one of you could take him out to the lakeside. Choose only two or three safe spells today, and have him direct them out over the water. Continue as long as Mr. Snape's energy lasts. At some point today, providing he has normal or higher energy levels, the spells should return to what we would consider 'normal' intensity."

"He can practice 'Lumos' on me," suggested Harry. "Can't hurt—I'm already blind."

"Stop it," said Poppy, rapping him on the head one more time. "And remind me to send you to St. Mungo's next time you're injured."

"Actually," said the Healer, shaking her head in amusement as she watched Poppy and Harry bicker, "I'd suggest a basic levitation spell first. Have Mr. Snape levitate rocks and sticks and such over the water. You can follow that with Evanesco—be sure to vanish only objects found on the ground around the lake. I wouldn't suggest an Accio yet…" Here Healer Youngblood laughed with unconcealed amusement. "You wouldn't want any merpeople or the Giant Squid to come sailing out of the lake now, would you?"

"Merpeople? You can't be seri… You are serious." Snape dropped his head into his hands, assuming a position that was becoming more and more common for him as his newfound life in the magical world progressed.

"Why don't I call in Hermione?" asked Poppy. "I'll need to stay here to make sure Mr. Potter behaves himself but Hermione can take Severus outside and they can have a go at unleashing that magical energy."

"I'd like to schedule the first memory restoration session later this afternoon," put in Stuart. "It that one goes well, we can have another in the morning and ramp up the schedule after that."

"Providing I don't go mad," said Severus.

"Providing all goes well," clarified Stuart. "You won't go mad, Severus. You may be disturbed—by either the content of the memory or how having those lost memories restored makes you feel."

"How will you choose which memory to restore first?" asked Harry. He well remembered this particular set of memories and not all of them were fun and games.

"Actually, Mr. Potter, I was hoping you would help choose. You've seen them all?"

"Yes, but it's been a long time. Remember I buried the vial with Severus' coffin."

"Still, I'd wager that you remember them pretty vividly…"

Harry nodded. "Yes, I do." Severus stared at him keenly. There was a larger mystery here, behind this young man with his family tragedy and temporary blindness.

"Well then, I'd say you should choose the memory we start with. I'd recommend something with strong emotional context."

Harry remained silent. It had been years—more than 20—since he'd viewed the memories. Even after all that time, the vivid pictures still played in his head, of his mother swinging while a child Snape spied on her, of Snape and Dumbledore on the windy clearing, of the two in the Headmaster's office, arguing over whether Harry was a pig for the slaughter, of the broken man who crawled to Dumbledore after Lily's death.

"These memories aren't exactly pleasant," said Harry at last. "Though most do have strong emotional context." He stopped and considered again. "Too strong, perhaps…"

"Yet they're all we have to work with. Pleasant or not, they will have to do."

With that pronouncement, Stuart left the others to deal with Severus' "purge" as Healer Youngblood now called it and arranged to return at 3 p.m. for the first memory restoration session. Poppy and Healer Youngblood went back to her office to summon Hermione and discuss with her the proscribed treatment and Severus and Harry were once again left alone in the cavernous infirmary.

"Not exactly pleasant?" asked Severus. Finally afforded some privacy, he was dressing for the day. He picked up his shoes and moved over to the bed opposite Harry, sitting down on it and waiting for an answer.

"You gave me the memories as you lay dying," explained Harry. "You had information I needed to end the war…." He trailed off but Severus kept his gaze on him.

"You needed to end the war? How old were you? Seventeen?"

"Almost eighteen," answered Harry. "Look, none of this will make any sense to you until you get your memory back. Suffice it to say that you and I have a history and it's…well, it's complicated. It turned out that we were both pretty pivotal in ending the war." He paused again. "Why don't we just agree to sit down and work this out after you get your magic under control and your memory back?"

Severus eyed the man before him. Harry was one person in the magical world that confounded him. He had an aura of power yet seemed strangely vulnerable. He seemed gentle with his children, open with his friends yet secretive about his past.

"Agreed," said Severus, holding out his hand to Harry to shake on it, then shaking his head and retracting it, remembering that Harry couldn't see his offer of peace.

Not quite an hour later, Hermione Granger-Weasley and Severus Snape stood on the banks of the Hogwarts Lake, facing the shore near the Hogsmeade Station where the boats launched every September 1st with their first-year passengers. Snape had scoffed at what he called the "Mangled Latin" of the Wingardium Leviosa spell, but he had committed both the words and the wand motion to memory. Hermione had made him practice with a stick, keeping his wand well out of sight until it was time to begin.

"I'm ready," said Severus, frustrated, after practicing the wand motion a dozen times with the old stick.

"OK, then," agreed Hermione, carefully handing Severus his wand after removing it from her robe pocket. "On that rock there next to the stump."

Severus, eager to get this exercise started and on its way, pointed his wand directly at the rock, uttered the incantation and performed the "swish and flick" motion Hermione had taught him. The rock immediately shot up into the air ten meters or more then crashed back down near their feet as Severus lost concentration and stepped back in surprise. His wand hand was tingling. He transferred his wand to his left hand and shook out his right one.

They both stared at the rock for a moment.

"Does everyone start with rocks?" asked Severus, pushing the grapefruit-sized rock forward with his foot.

"First years typically practice on feathers because they're light and easier to control," answered Hermione.

"They also do less damage falling down from ten meters up," commented Severus.

Hermione deftly transfigured the rock into a long white feather and handed it to Severus.

"Feathers it is, then," she said.

Two hours later, Severus had levitated a series of feathers, branches, rocks, shells, dirt clods and leaf clumps as well as a dead starling, a live squirrel, a soggy piece of parchment and a very surprised frog. Hermione then taught him the vanishing spell, and he managed to vanish all of the items he'd first levitated as well as a few he had not—like the little dinghy Hagrid kept tied up at the shore and a patch of wild thistle but not the bees hovering around it.

"Where do they go?" he asked Hermione as they trudged back up to the castle after starting all over with levitating (this time working on larger items like tree limbs and boulders). He was exhausted. By the end of the session, the objects lifted with ease but without the unbridled enthusiasm of the objects in his earliest efforts. While he didn't feel that he was exerting a tremendous effort as he worked with the wand, he nonetheless felt drained after spending the morning—all of the morning—doing spells.

"The objects you vanished?" answered Hermione. "No one knows. It's almost as if they go to an in-between place of some sort, because they always come back when you do the counter spell.

"You don't teach that spell to children, do you?" he asked suddenly.

"In a co-ed boarding school? Are you kidding?" Hermione laughed. "We'd have hundreds of naked students running for cover all the time! You might want to look at the Charms textbooks—the spells are apportioned out by year and approved by the Board of Governors." She paused and considered. "Of course, they haven't changed at all since I was a student here…"

"The charms or the Board of Governors?" asked Severus.

Hermione smiled. "Neither, I'd say. Oh, we've had a few replacements on the Board over the years, but by and large it's led by the pillars of the wizarding community. They tend to be very old and very rich."

They walked together amicably, Severus gazing about the grounds and taking time to study the castle from the outside. Day two and he'd yet to have more than vague feelings of familiarity—such as when he saw Harry for the first time, or when he'd first held his wand. When actually using the wand this morning, he hadn't felt at all like he'd done the spells before. He had felt a curious connection, a rightness, something that was difficult to pin down. It was as if a part of him that had been dormant had awakened. He felt surges of power, the tingling in his fingers. He knew he should have felt a sense of wrongness as the boulder rose in the air or the little wooden dinghy disappeared, but instead of wrongness he'd felt a nascent peace, as if it were completely natural and utterly expected for a rock the size of a football to fly ten meters up in the air, hover a bit, then slowly sink back to the ground.

He had felt alive when he used his wand.

Powerful.

He fingered it now, in the pocket of his pants. The grooves and ridges where his hand had molded it over the years felt as natural to him as the ridged scars on his neck. How many times had he run his fingers over those scars these past twenty years, wondering how he had come to have them? He could feel the contours in his mind. His wand was oddly similar. He knew exactly how to hold it, exactly where to rest his thumb, just how to place his ring finger and his pinkie, tucked in at the base of the handle, nestled against his thumb.

As Hermione and Severus walked into the entry hall, Severus once again turned toward the dungeon stairs. Hermione called to him to follow her up to the infirmary where Healer Youngblood waited to assess his magic levels.

"What's down there again?" he asked as he followed her up the stairs, his eyes straying back over to the wide stone staircase that led downward.

"The dungeons—your quarters were down there, as well as the Potions classroom," answered Hermione. "And the Slytherin dormitories. Until you were Headmaster, you spent most of your time below ground."

Muscle memory. His body was accustomed to a certain pattern and he followed it now, with the change in direction toward the dungeon stairs, with how he held the familiar wand that by all rights should feel foreign. Even the wand movements, when demonstrated once by Hermione, were easily repeated and committed to memory, to new memory.

Poppy had just set up Harry's lunch tray when they arrived at the infirmary, so Hermione sat down to help him while Healer Youngblood settled Severus on a bed and performed a series of tests including a balance test that required him to stand on one leg while attempting to brush his teeth and a standard memory test similar to the ones given to early-stage dementia patients.

"I'm sorry but I don't know who the current Minister of Magic is," he protested quite Snapishly. "And my clock face is perfectly fine. I have two hands on my clock, not one, and they point to the time, not to locations."

Harry and Hermione hid their grins as Snape, after seeing the 18th century style "blood letting" implement, refused to submit to a blood screening.

The Healer left after prescribing three supervised one-hour sessions of simple but safe spells daily for the next week to channel Severus' excess magic reserves and to provide an outlet so that emotional outbursts and random sneezes weren't accompanied by accidental magic. He was also given a children's "Accidental Magic" journal with a special self-inking quill. The journal had sturdy binding, pages with wide lines and was password protected. The cover was weather-proof and featured a 3-D depiction of a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon.

"Oh joy," said Severus, examining the journal after Healer Youngblood left then tossing it onto the bedside table. The dragon on the front let out a defiant roar and smoke and sparks shot out, igniting a box of facial tissues.

"Aguamenti," muttered Severus as he pointed his wand at the small blaze.

A strong jet of clear water erupted from the end of Severus' wand and extinguished the flames.

Severus dropped his arm but retained his grip on his wand. The water shot all over his shoes.

"How do you turn this thing off?" he exclaimed, whirling around to face Harry and Hermione and hitting them both in the face with a burst of water. "Nox! Nox!" he shouted as they sputtered and Hermione lunged forward to help.

"Finite!" she yelled as the room went dark. "Nox is only for lights!"

"Finite!" shouted Severus at the wand. The water stopped and Severus dropped the wand. All was silent as it clattered on the wooden floor then rolled to a stop.

"That thing is dangerous," said Severus, pushing it further away with the toe of his shoe.

"I'm getting a hotel room," muttered Harry as he wiped his face with a wet corner of his shirt.

Hermione bent to pick up the wand and used it to relight the oil lamps. She didn't return it to Severus.

"I didn't teach you that spell," she said, her voice strangely quiet and calm.

The room was very, very quiet.