Snape watched the headmaster closely while he studied the two boys in front of them. They were all in Snape’s living room, the two boys laid on the couch while the headmaster examined the extent of their idiocy. The living room was bright and elegant, with big windows that let sunlight outside. The room had a view of the backyard, there were bright red roses, a garden bench, and a little garden pond with large amount of white water lilies.
Snape himself were leaning against the door, he was at his wits end, could he not get one minute of peace this holiday?

"Well, the created effects are certainly unexpected, but not all together undesirable" Dumbledoor said to him with an aggravating twinkle in his eyes.

"Oh for Merlin’s sake! What do you mean ‘not undesirable’?!"
"Surely not even you, Albus, could possibly suggest this is a preferable situation?"

"Now, now Severus, this might not be so bad. I think it could even do the three of you some good"

"I am not taking responsibility of those imbecilic morons in this state!" Snape growled with his most menacing glare in place.

"I suggest…" Dumbledoor was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Snape looked towards the door, then at Dumbledoor, before he went to see who was knocking. The wards around the house were still up and running, that had to mean that the visitors had to be muggles. The wards made it impossible for any magical being that had not gotten express permission from him to enter the premises. Every person able to enter the house was currently in his living room, so it was safe to assume that no witch or wizard were standing outside.

Snape opened the door irritably, outside stood three boys that looked to be around thirteen. With a closer look he recognized the one on the left as the boy in the opposite couch yesterday night. He briefly considered giving them all a real talking to, or simply slam the door in their face. Before he could act though, the one in the middle opened his mouth. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and wore a set of clothes Snape would have thought fitting for a juvenile delinquent. They all looked like they were in bad shape, and serve them right. Their skin looked pale and clammy, and all three of them had circles under their eyes. He gave the boys a cold glare. The blonde swallowed nervously before talking.

"We were just wondering if we could talk to Harry and Draco, sir?" The boy asked silently.

"No” Snape answered with icy impatience.
This answer seemed to disconcert the small group. They looked nervously at each other before the darker, short boy could figure out what to say. Snape was in the middle of slamming the door shut when he was forced to stop. The darker boy had put his foot in between so the door wouldn’t shut.

"Please sir, we just want to see how they are" he said.
Snape was just about to start yelling at them, tell them to mind their own business and disappear from his property, when Dumbledoor stepped up beside him. Their eyes went as big as dinner plates when they caught eye of the elderly wizard. Dumbledoor was wearing dark purple wizards robes with white shiny stars, his beard was shiny white and very long, and he radiated an aura of power none of the muggle boys probably had witnessed before.

"Oh, come now Severus. There’s no need to be so short tempered" Dumbledoor said good naturedly. The twinkle in his eyes however told him that Dumbledoor quite enjoyed the whole situation. Sometimes Severus really could not stand that man.

"I’m sorry boys, but I am afraid Harry and Draco has gone on holiday for a couple of weeks. I’m sure they will come find you when they get back" Dumbledoor said with a wink.
The three boys in front of them didn’t look as they had gotten over Dumbledoor’s appearance yet. All they managed to do was nod weakly, before turning around and with many backward glances move slowly back to where they came from.

When Dumbledoor had closed the front door and turned back to him, Snape sneered I’m his direction.

"Gone on holiday?" He said sarcastically. "It’s not like you to lie, Albus. I thought you preferred half truth’s, riddles, and unclear instructions?" Snape drawled with ill tempered sarcasm. This whole ordeal had made I’m irritable and tired, he was not in a good mood at all.

"Your quite right my friend. It is my belief that the truth is generally preferable to lies."
"The simple answer is of course that I did not lie" The infuriating twinkle was back in his eyes, and it made Snape want to strangle him.

"And prey tell, what do you mean by that?" Snape stared at Dumbledoor with his most dangerous glare. He did not like the way this was going.

"I think you, Draco and Harry should go on a well deserved holiday” Dumbledoor winked.

“Absolutely not! I am not taking those dunderheads on anything” Snape growled.
“Besides it’s a complete waste of time, how in the name of Merlin do you expect me to come up with a cure if I’m stuck on holiday?!” Snape thundered.
Dumbledoor however looked completely in unabashed by Snapes rant.

“Oh my, Severus, I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do it alone. I have just the person you need at hand” Dumbledoor smiled mysteriously.
“And I rather think you should take some time off, I will arrange for someone else to make the cure”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT! I will not agree to this rubbish plan of yours!”
_____

10 minutes later Dumbledoor had stepped through the fireplace and flooed away. A few meters to the left of the fireplace stood an irritated but defeated Severus Snape. No matter how much Snape argued at the variety of mental schemes that old coot came up with, he always ended up stuck right in the middle of them. He let out a long sigh as he drew a long fingered hand down his face.
A few feet away, on the living room couch, lay two small boys. One had platinum blonde hair and icy blue eyes, the other had raven hair and bright enchanting emerald eyes. A simple charm had shown them that the approximate age were around 3 and a half years. The cocktail of potions and ingredients that were splattered at every inch of their body were no ordinary deaging potion, and he had absolutely no idea on how to reverse it.

There was something that had been troubling him in the back of his mind ever since he had walked in to the basement lab. He had tried to put it out of his head, forget about it and don’t care, but to his utter annoyance he didn’t seem to manage it. He did not want to care and he didn’t want to take a closer look, because this involved the worlds most spoiled and infuriating brat. The child off his arch nemesis, the brat that was so spoilt he did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, with no thought to those surrounding him, and no consequences to his actions. The same child he had sworn to protect, a child with glittering bright emerald eyes, her eyes. And it was because of her that he was unable to forget about it. He just had to cross his fingers that it wouldn’t lead to anything unpleasant if he took a closer look, because he had to, for Lily.

The small boy laid on the couch on his back, he looked almost innocent in his sleep. The boy was tiny, too small, actually way to small. If he had seen this child on the streets he would have guessed he was around two, maybe two and a half. A child grew quite a lot from the age from two to three, therefore this was decidedly disturbing. In addition to this, the child completely lacked the chubbiness almost every well nourished child sported at that age. Severus would no doubt have blamed all of this on the child being too picky and spoilt for his own good had it not been for the ever growing dark purple mark that was stretching it’s way up the little boys throat. He would of course have blamed this too on the child being unruly, but he had decided he would take a closer look at it just to be safe.
He walked to where the Potter brat lay, and without being anywhere near touching him he looked at every visible inch of the little boy. He tried to study him as objectively as he could. The skin on his face, arms and legs were sunburnt, red, stretched and looked painful. Almost as if he had been out in the brightest sunshine several days in a row without any sunscreen. His arms were no thicker than a dog bone, and didn’t seem to be much more than that either. The little amount of tissue was plain muscle. What he could see of the rest of the child’s body was the same, just skin and bones. The purple mark on his neck went around the front of his throat and down beneath his shirt. At a closer look it seemed as someone had pressed their fingers hard down on the little boys throat, almost like they had strangled him. But that couldn’t be right, who would have done that? His relatives spoilt him rotten, and would never touch a hair on their precious brat.

There was nothing for it, he just wanted to be finished with this unpleasant task. He stretched a hand out to lift up the boys shirt, but just as his outstretched fingers touched the outwashed t-shirt a movement to the side made him stop in his tracks. Draco seemed to be waking up, and in the process he pushed against Potters side.
Great, now they both were waking up.
Snape drew back, he would just need to accept that he had to get back to the problem at hand later. He watched with dismay as the two small figures opened their eyes and looked warily around. With a sigh he realized he had some things he needed to clear up with the two of them, and prepared himself for what he would find. He very much hoped their bodies did not reflect their mind, he really didn’t think he could handle two complete three year olds even for a day.
_____

Harry woke up with a discomforting pain he had felt way too many times before. His throat felt sore, his back throbbed, and his body had the kind of soreness to it he usually got after uncle Vernon had given him a real beating. That, however, could not be the case here. Could it? He looked around with confusion. He could remember everything that had happened up until the potion explosion in the basement. As he looked around the room it hit him how big everything looked, certainly bigger than it was this morning, but why? At this point his gaze had found Draco Malfoy, as their gazes met Harry let out a surprised gasp. In front of him sat a small child with icey blue eyes and extremely light blonde hair. It was unmistakably Draco Malfoy, it had to be, but it made no sense. Draco stared at him with just as much surprise as himself. Harry got a feeling of dread in the pitch of his stomach. No, it couldn’t be, that wasn’t even possible.
With I’ll disguised horror Harry stared down at his own body. No, no, no, why was this happening? Why couldn’t he get one single break for once in his life. Why this age? Why with Snape’s as his warden?

Harry didn’t like to be back at this age, from the feel and look of it he was around three years old. This was the age Harry had started working for his keep. He had gotten next to no food until the day he had learned to do his chores perfectly, even then he had not gotten much. In addition he had worked outside all day long, with sensitive toddler skin that meant sunburns, scrapes and aches all over. He didn’t like the thought of Snape or Malfoy seeing him like this, they were bound to get the wrong impression of things. On the other hand they might not care at all. Snape would probably like the idea of Harry being beaten and starved, yes he probably had nothing to worry about. Weirdly enough this theory made him feel dispirited. As much as he hoped they wouldn’t find out anything, or make any assumptions, he couldn’t help but feel gloomy at the thought. Of course no one ever cared, this was how it was supposed to be for the chosen one, that was why Dumbledoor had placed him with the Dursley’s in the first place. Dumbledoor was omniscient, all-knowing, he would already know the sort of treatment Harry received at the Dursley’s, he might even encourage it. This thought made Harry feel sick, and to his utter astonishment and dismay he felt his eyes grow blanker with unshed tears. Oh no, he would not cry! It had to be the psychical age he currently was trapped in, Harry swore inside, he did not cry. He took a deep breath, collected his thought and feelings, and locked them securely deep inside. This was the method he always used when he felt like this, and it nearly always worked.

When Harry had got his shit together he looked up at Draco who still seemed lost for words. When their gazes met it seemed to shake Draco out of the shock-like state he was in. Draco looked up at Snape.

"Uncle Sev? What has ‘appned to us?" Draco said. It came out like a high pitched, childish squeal of terror. Draco looked disgruntled at his own tone, but was soon distracted by Snape’s reply.

"It seems as your little escapade in my potions lab has led to some rather unpleasant consequences." Snape said in a manner that made them understand that he was not pleased.

"But you can cure us cam’t you? I don wanna be stuck like tis!"

"That remains to be seen" Snape said with a bit of a nasty undertone.
When he saw their hysterical expressions, he added.

"The cure will probably be ready in a couple of weeks, but our dear headmaster has decided I am not the one that shall make it"

"A couple of weeks?!" Both Harry and Draco said in unison.
"And what do you mean you awre not the one that are making it? Who is then?" Draco added. He seemed to struggle with pronouncing the words correctly. It appeared as if he concentrated on his pronunciations they came out more accurately than if he just babbled on, so that was exactly what he was trying to do.

"No idea" Snape drawled.
Harry and Draco looked at each other with identical alarmed facial expressions. If Dumbledoor decided to put someone like Lockheart on the case they were as good as dead. As much as Harry would like to trust Dumbledoor on this, he had his concerns. After all, Lockheart had been their defense professor last year, and Dumbledoor had employed him despite his horrendously lacking competence. Harry couldn’t believe his own thoughts, but he would much rather have preferred Snape to be the one to make it. He had to admit that although the greasy dungeon bat was slimy, ill tempered and vicious, his expertise in potion making was nothing short of marvelous.

"Enough of that now." Snape growled impatiently. "I need to determine your mental state, you two are to tell me what you remember, what happened, why you were down there, and how this came to be"

And so they did, at least to the best of their ability. Harry was content on letting Draco do the talking, he only chimed in when he was forced. He was still flabbergasted of the quick turn of events, this day really was something for itself.
At last they were finished telling their story. Snape stood leaning against the wall, examining the two of them, his glare lingering a few seconds longer on Harry.

"Well, there does not seem to be remarkable damage to your mental age, at least not tremendously." At this he glared accusingly at Harry. "However, there’s nothing that warrant us any guarantees that it will remain so."

"The concoction you two managed to make is not any already known to wizard kind, you should consider yourself lucky that your utter stupidity did not end in fatal terms for either of you" Snape said angrily.
"We have no idea what the effects will be, but so far it seems like only your body is affected. Regardless, in similar situations it has been found that the mind usually will be affected by ones morphology to a certain extent. We should therefore not be surprised if you grow to sport certain traits your psychical forms alludes.

Neither Harry nor Draco understood the details of that statement, but they both knew better than to ask. The essence of the information was easier to understand. Harry did not think he would act any different than his older self, he still felt like a soon to be thirteen year old and he would be inclined to make sure it stayed that way.

"Since you two have shown yourself incapable of fulfilling simple punishments without supervision, I am forced to oversee your actions at all times. You will finish your punishment in my office after lunch." Snape said sourly.
"Go wash your hands, the food is on the table" he said with his back turned, already on his way out of the room.

Harry looked briefly at Draco, before the two of them started squirming down the side of the couch, he never before had appreciated how tall the sofa actually was. The enormous flight of stairs they had to vanquish would be a full body workout. He sighed as he felt every movement aggravating his already painful body.