Harry wondered if he should say anything, maybe yell at Snape not to be a fool, to get out of the car while they were both still alive.

Snape put the car into gear – it was an automatic, and Harry could see the man’s foot on the brake petal, about to lift off. Harry had fleeting thought that he should be thankful the car was not a manual, but he wondered if a manual car would make for a cleaner, swifter death.

"Floo!" Harry yelled suddenly. "We could take the Floo network."

"Too risky," Snape said, foot still on the brake. "I’m not sure exactly what might happen to you if you tried the open one in my study, given your recent accident. Besides, with your luck, you’d come out of a different fireplace than me altogether. We’re driving, so try to sit still."

Snape lifted off the brake petal and slammed down on the gas. The car shot straight ahead, wheels skidded on the pavement. Snape seemed undisturbed, but Harry could barely breathe as they continued going faster and faster down the driveway. Up ahead was a turn. They were approaching it very fast, and Snape was not turning, and there was a huge tree straight in front of them. If Snape did not turn with the drive, the car would smash into the tree head-on.

The tree was coming closer, they were not turning. Harry found that he could not make a word of protest – his mouth went completely dry. He did the only thing he could at the moment: he squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the armrest as tight as he could. This was an odd way to die, a part of his brain thought. He had always supposed he would be killed by Voldemort or die of old age, one of the two. Barreling into a tree in a car driven by an arrogant wizard who had only read the manual a few hours ago – that had not been in his plans.

Any second now, they would collide. Any second . . .

But no crash came – no splintering of glass, no smashing of metal. Had it happened so quickly that he was already dead?

Harry opened one eye warily. They were past the bend in the road, still on the pavement, traveling at fair speed but nothing too dangerous. He glanced over – Snape was definitely smirking.

"Oh, dear, dear Potter," the potions master lamented, "so naïve and gullible. When you do meet the Dark Lord, he’ll probably tell you the war was all a joke, that he didn’t mean any of it, and you’ll believe him, at least long enough for him to kill you."

"What?" Harry demanded.

"Did you think I was so stupid as to drive a car for the first time with you as a passenger, going into London without knowing how to drive?"

"You’ve driven a car before?"

"Of course, I have. About fifteen years ago, right out of Hogwarts, but it’s not something you forget easily. I simply loved that face you made, all screwed up and pinched, your knuckles white as you held on for dear life. Quite amusing."

Harry scowled at him. "Ugly git," he muttered, his heart still pounding in his chest though he tried not to show it.

"Language, Mr. Potter," Snape said though he didn’t seem too annoyed. " But I’ll try not to scare you again."

"I wasn’t scared," Harry stated, removing his hands from the armrests and slouching back in the seat in what he hoped was a careless attitude. "I knew you wouldn’t kill me ‘cause then you’d have to answer to Dumbledore."

Snape gave the wheel a sudden turn that jerked the whole car, and Harry jumped.

"My apologies," Snape said smoothly. "I wouldn’t want to upset your delicate nerves."

"Ha-ha!" Harry retorted. He leaned back again and looked out the window at the green fields and trees on the side of the road. It was pleasantly warm inside the car, and had Harry felt tired, it would have been delightful to doze off in the sunlight from the windows. But he was wide awake, and for the next hour he amused himself by watching the wind play with the trees and staring at the side of the road which blurred as they drove by very fast.

"You’re very quiet," Snape observed as he turned the car onto a highway by a sign that said London, 27 miles. "Either you’re sulking, or you’re plotting some new mischief."

"I don’t plot anything," Harry said, coming out of his thoughts. "Things just happen to me, and I fight back, and then everyone blames me for looking for trouble."

"Liar," Snape said, looking straight ahead at the road.

"Hey!" Harry protested.

"You’re lying," Snape insisted. "You go looking for trouble, admit it!"

"Fine," Harry crossed his arms on top of his seatbelt. "You think you always know best, and you always have to be right so I’m not going to argue."

"Really, Potter," Snape shook his head in mock amazement. "That is the smartest thing you’ve said in five years."

It was an insult, but Harry found himself not caring that Snape was making jabs at him. "Thank you," Harry replied evenly. "Of course, I’m still waiting for you to make a single smart comment, but I have two more years of school so I’ll keep my fingers crossed."

The smack he got on the shoulder did not quite erase Harry’s own smirk, and Harry grinned even more when Snape did not have a jab ready to hurl back at him.

London was hustling and bustling with traffic and people walking, but Harry thought it was odd that they did not stop once at a stoplight or crosswalk. The light would be red up ahead, but by the time the car reached the light, it turned green. As they approached the street that the entrance to Diagon Alley was on, Harry did not see a single empty parking space. Yet, by the time they were at the entrance, there was a large parking space right at the front as if it were waiting for them.

"Is that legal?" Harry asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

"It’s not illegal," Snape replied, putting the car into park and turning off the engine. "Besides, the car’s bewitched to get us there as fast as it can."

Harry froze with his hand on the door handle. "What? It’s a magic car? Does the Ministry know?"

"Yes, I rented it from them," Snape replied as he got out of the car.

Harry hurried out, shutting the door behind him. "But I thought these things were illegal. Ron’s dad got in trouble our second year –"

"Mr. Weasley bewitched a car to fly and did not try to register it anywhere, but kept it at home for his own private use," Snape said sternly. "There’s a difference. Hurry up, I don’t have all day."

Harry stopped in his tracks. "Wait! What about how I look?"

Snape sighed and looked sorrowful. "I’m sorry, Potter, sooner or later I knew you would come to realize exactly how hideous you look, but that’s really more your parents’ fault than yours."

"No, not that," Harry growled. "I meant, won’t people recognize me in there? And won’t they want to know what I’m doing with you?"

"Look over there," Snape pointed to a darken window.

Harry stepped in front of it and gasped. "What did you do to me?"

The boy staring back at him did not look like Harry Potter. This boy had long hair that was a lighter brown, and his nose was longer and straighter, and his eyes had more blue in them than green. Harry whirled to face Snape who seemed amused.

"When did you change my looks? I don’t want to look like this!"

"Relax, Potter," Snape began walking again. "It’s a simple surface alteration charm that will wear off by the end of the day. I cast it when I rapped you over the head with my wand for your cheekiness."

"You could have told me, and no, I would not have argued with you," Harry added, rightly guessing what Snape might have said. "I understand that I can’t run around with you looking like myself. But I didn’t feel the changes. Why are these changes so subtle and the charm easy when Polyjuice Potion is so hard to make and hurts when you drink it?"

"Because Polyjuice Potion turns you into the person you’re copying, giving you their entire body and physical makeup. This charm just alters a few characteristics of your face. Were anyone to look at you carefully, they would think that you look more like Mr. Harry Potter than anyone else, but no one will be looking that closely at you. For now, your name is Henry, and if anyone asks, you’re my nephew who has come to visit me for the summer."

"Your nephew?" Harry grimaced. "I don’t want to be related to you."

"Furthermore," Snape continued as if he had not heard Harry, "you’re something of a troublemaker, and my dear sister is at her wits’ end to know what to do with you so she sent you to Uncle Snape for some discipline."

Harry rolled his eyes. By then they were at the entrance way, and Snape began pressing the bricks to let them through.

"Don’t wander off," Snape warned as the bricks swung away, and Diagon Alley stretched out before them. "Stay close, and if I call Henry, you better come running. Any trouble on your part, and I’ll find a spare closet somewhere to deal with you. Understand?"

"Yes, Uncle Snape," Harry said, rather snidely.

There were very few people in Diagon Alley; the street was practically empty. Harry wondered if it were too early in the day for people to be shopping, or if the recent news of Voldemort’s return had scared them all off. Harry headed towards Gringott’s automatically, dodging a cart that advertised fake flowers that made rainbows you could walk on. Come to a stream, don’t want to get your feet wet, place one flower on the ground beside the stream, and it would arc a rainbow over the stream that you could walk on to the other side. Harry wondered what Snape would say if he wanted to buy one; he’d probably tell Harry to jump over the stream when he came to it or look for a bridge. Knowing Snape, the man would also tell him to jump off the bridge when Harry reached it.

"Where are you going?" Snape grabbed Harry’s arm and pulled him back.

"Huh?" Harry snapped out of his thoughts about rainbow arcs. "I’m going to the bank. You know, to get money to pay for the potions?"

Snape hesitated, then said, "Well, never mind the money for now. I wrote to several shops and told them that my young houseguest destroyed my potions store, and they told me that because I was such a frequently customer they would be willing to let me have the new ingredients for a very low cost. They won’t have everything I need though, so I will have to grow a few things in my garden which you will be tending for the rest of the summer."

Harry blinked, staring up at Snape. Did the man mean that he did not plan to take any of Harry’s money?

"Don’t look too grateful," Snape growled, walking towards a small shop on the corner. "I’m not doing it to be nice. I wasn’t about to spend your family’s fortune and then have you come beating on my door in a few years, whining about how you have no money. Stop dawdling, and come along!"

The first potions shop was dark and dim compared to the bright sunshine outside, and it took several seconds for Harry’s eyes to adjust. Once he could see properly, he wished he were blinded again. Not only were there jars and vial and glass containers of slimy, dark things on the numerous shelves, but there were also barrels of things not dead yet. Slithering, squirming, black things in one barrel, not snakes, not frogs, not worms, but a combination of all those things with round staring eyes. Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets, not wanting to touch anything.

Snape was already talking to the man behind the corner, a shrunken wizard with half his teeth missing and a crooked nose. "Yes," Snape said in a tired voice, "young Henry decided to play potions in my upstairs store and succeeded in destroying it. I could only salvage a handful of ingredients as I said in my letter."

The man behind the corner turned his ugly eyes on Harry. "I see," the man croaked. "I do hope Nephew Henry got his just rewards from his dear uncle for such naughtiness."

"Believe me, he did," Snape said dryly, and Harry tried not to blush. "Now, if I could have a look at the things you set aside for me?"

Both men went into the back, discussing potions. Harry took advantage of his chance and ran out of the shop; he figured he had about fifteen minutes before Snape knew he was gone. He turned onto the street and kept running as fast as he could until he reached the start of Knockturn Alley. The lane seemed to grow darker, the shops looked menacing and dangerous, and Harry felt a chill of apprehension run over him. Swallowing hard, he hurried to Borgin and Burkes, the shop he had accidentally flooed to the summer before his second year. The shop looked about the same, full of Dark Art objects, but Harry found that he didn’t feel so frighten as he had four years ago. Panting, he dashed up to the counter where Mr. Borgin sat, looking depressed.

"Excuse me," Harry said in a rush, "do you have any timeturners?"

"Timeturners?" the man glared at him. "No, we do not. The Ministry confiscated those years ago. And considering how careful they’re watching us these days, I’ll be lucky to keep open another month. Raids every few days, families selling off all their heirlooms to avoid suspicion, nobody’s buying."

"Yes," Harry interrupted, "it’s just terrible. What about an object called the Necklace of Timord? Ever heard of it?"

"Of course," Mr. Borgin looked at Harry warily. "What would you want with an item like that?"

"I made mistake a while back, and I need to fix it."

"What kind of mistake?"

Harry cast around for the best lie. "Er, I cheated on my girlfriend, and she broke up with me, and now I want her back so I’m going back in time to change what I did."

Mr. Borgin let out a short laugh. "Oh, you young blokes. Well, sorry, but I don’t have the Necklace of Timord. I do have a bracelet that would make the young lady in question forget what you did, or a ring that will make her tolerate you long enough to win her back."

"No, that’s all right," Harry stepped away from the counter. On a hunch, he turned back and asked, "You don’t happen to know where it might be, do you?"

"I sure do," Mr. Borgin answered. "At the present moment, it’s in the possession of Lucius Malfoy at Malfoy Manor."

Harry felt little tingles run up and down his spine. "Malfoy Manor?"

"Yes, but don’t get any ideas of taking it from Mr. Malfoy," Mr. Borgin advised. "He’ll kill you before you can get through the front door."

"Thanks," Harry said before racing towards the door. As he scrambled out of Knockturn Alley, he furiously thought over what he had just learned. The Necklace was right next door at Malfoy Manor. That was more than coincident – that was almost fate, destiny, what he was meant to do. All was not lost; he could correct his mistakes.

Snape was looking over dozens of ingredients when Harry sneaked back into the potions shop. Snape did not look up as he said to the man behind the corner, "All right, I’ll take them all. Put them in my car out front."

"Will do, sir," the man began packing up the ingredients.

"Let’s go, Henry," Snape motioned to Harry, and they both started for the door. Once outside, Snape grabbed Harry by the scruff of his neck in a tight pinch.

"Ow!" Harry said, but did not pull away.

"I thought I told you to stay near," Snape lectured. "I meant stay close to me, and not go running off down the street. Are you going to listen to me, or am I going to have to extend your punishment of not leaving my sight for another day?"

"No, sir, I’m sorry," Harry apologized. "I – I just wanted to see – uh, Fred and George’s new joke shop. I didn’t think you wanted to go in there . . ."

"And you would be right," Snape said shortly. The potions master drew out his wand and pointed it at Harry. "Turn out your pockets."

"What?" Harry had nothing in his pockets, but he did not understand the request.

"I’m not having you buy those sweets or whatever they make so I turn into a bird or a rat or something equally revolting. You’re not sneaking those candies into my house so turn out your pockets now."

Harry immediately pulled his pockets inside out. "See, nothing."

Snape did not look satisfied. Harry felt exasperated.

"Look, unless you’d like to strip search me right here, you have to believe I’m not going to start playing pranks on you. I’m not Fred or George, and I’m not twelve-years’ old, so trust me."

The frown did not leave Snape’s face, but he let go of Harry’s neck and began walking to the next store. "One more shop, and then we can stop for lunch. Then we’ll go looking for your schoolbooks. And if I turn into anything while you’re staying at Snapdragon Manor, you better be a hundred miles away when I turn back, or you won’t live to regret it."

-------

The back seat of the car was packed full of potion packages, books, and dried satchels of herbs by the time they both got in the car. Harry was stuffed from the supper Snape made him eat, a lot of food considering he had still felt full from lunch. Also, Harry was tired from standing so long – someone needed to put more chairs in those shops. Harry leaned back in his seat as Snape started the car.

"Do I have to start studying tomorrow?" Harry asked, trying not to sound whiny. "I want to have time to do other stuff."

"Like what?"

"I dunno. I want to fly on my broom and maybe send Ron and Hermione a letter. Oh, no!" Harry jerked up right, the seatbelt cutting into his shoulder. "Where’s Hedwig? I haven’t seen her all week. Last thing I knew, I sent her with a letter to the Burrow, and then I left. Did she go back to the Dursleys? They probably killed her by now."

"Relax," Snape said calmly. "Your owl is in the owlry in the tallest tower at Snapdragon Manor. Though she’s probably not pleased that you didn’t remember her until now."

"I’m sorry," Harry rebutted. "I was too busy catching fire and getting my rear whaled to think about my owl."

Snape just smirked, but Harry felt even worse for ignoring Hedwig. She would most likely start nipping his fingers and flap around his head pecking to punish him. Harry slumped in the seat; he couldn’t do anything right anymore.

Once out of the main part of the city, the sun was setting, and Harry was feeling very drowsy. As his eyes fluttered shut, he noticed that his reflection was back to his usual look: dark hair, short nose, green eyes.

"Next time you change my appearance, tell me," Harry muttered. There was no reply, only the hum of the engine.

------

It was past ten o’clock when Harry stumbled into Snape’s room and fumbled around for his pajamas before heading to the bathroom. Full meals, sleeping all the time, standing around – by the time Harry started Quidditch practice in the fall, he wouldn’t know how to stay on his broomstick. He could see himself rolling off the broom to take a nap on the grass.

Tomorrow, he would do something worth his while – there had to be a way to get into Malfoy Manor. A brilliant idea flashed over Harry, and he stopped brushing his teeth to look at himself in the mirror. He could make Polyjuice Potion to look like Draco. He was in a potions master’s house, all the right ingredients were at his finger tips, he could make it! But no, it would take over a month to brew, and where was he going to get a bit of Draco?

Well, then how about a charm like the one Snape used today? Just something temporary and easy, he only needed it to get inside Malfoy Manor and find that Necklace.

Harry rinsed his mouth out and dried his hands on a towel. He got into the makeshift bed on the sofa and continued to plot through his plan.

He could stake out Malfoy Manor for a few days first, figure out when no one would be there. Then he would go in – but what if they had house elves guarding the front door? Maybe his Invisibility Cloak . . . but no, he couldn’t go looking for that again. Snape was likely to chain Harry to a chair if he found his ward snooping around so soon after being put on restriction. But there had to be a way. Things were working out too much in his favor for it all to be coincidence. He just needed to think it out, work it out carefully . . .

Snape came in the room as the clock struck half past ten. He half-expected to have to chase his ward down to get him into bed, and Snape felt a moment’s surprise when he saw the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Plague him fast asleep. It was unnerving to watch the brat sleep – he looked so young and innocent, all he needed was to clutch a cuddly teddy bear, and Snape would be too repulsed by the picture of sweetness and naivete to ever look at the boy again.

At least, he was quiet. There was still a lot of summer to get through, and the brat was becoming far too accomplished at returning the vindictive comments that Snape flung at him. At this rate, the boy would go back to Hogwarts with enough smart quips to aggravate every teacher in the school.

With one last look to make sure Potter was asleep, Snape lowered the candles. There was no reason to risk waking him up again.

------

He just had to make it until four o’clock. That was time his punishment had started three days ago, and it would end at four that afternoon. He had done nothing to make Snape lengthen his punishment, and Harry sat very quietly in his seat, writing out lines he was supposed to have finished the night before. Though he hated to admit it, Snape had been pretty decent about everything lately. Harry had been so tired last night as he had swung out of the car, but he had expected Snape to order him to pull out a quill and parchment and get to writing. Instead, Snape had let him have a cup of hot chocolate before insisting he go on up to bed. So all Harry had to do was behave himself for the next six hours until four o’clock. Six hours – that was a lot of time to get into trouble.

Harry shifted on the hard chair, and his arm tipped the inkwell over, splattering ink all over his lines. Snape, who was reading though the mail, sighed.

"Potter –"

"Those count," Harry insisted. "You saw me write them. That was a hundred lines – I don’t want to write them again."

"If you wanted to do them at all, it wouldn’t be a punishment," Snape commented. "Get a new parchment, and write fifty more lines, and then you can start looking over your schoolbooks. I’ve written out a study schedule for you –"

Harry groaned loudly.

"And you’ll stick to it," Snape continued sternly.

"I don’t want to study," Harry grumbled. "I’m tired of studying. My punishment ends this afternoon, and I’ve done everything you’ve said, and I want to go flying."

Even Harry turned red at how whiny he sounded, and he knew Snape was thinking "cranky toddler." But Harry thought he had been very good, all things considered, and it wasn’t like he had wanted to live with Snape in the first place . . .

"All right," Snape growled, "if you’re going do nothing but annoy me, you can go flying this afternoon after an hour of weeding the garden. But there are going to be rules about where and when you can fly, and if you don’t follow them to the letter, I’m sawing that broomstick in half."

And Snape would do it, too – the snarky prat. But Harry knew that would make him think twice about doing anything that endangered the broomstick Sirius gave him. However, Harry realized, as he started on his lines again, that he would do anything to bring his godfather back. It should be Sirius sitting in the big armchair, reading over the mail. It should be Sirius criticizing him and telling him what to do. And should the need arise although Harry thought it probably wouldn’t, it should be Sirius punishing him, not an overgrown bat of a potions master with an overly-hard hand.

Harry felt renewed determination surge through him. He was going to save Sirius. And Snape would never know what hit him.