Ah...he was here again. In the woods. Trekking down the path he had traveled, his feet crunching the autumn leaves more loudly than before.

Why was he here? How did he get here? He couldn’t remember much of anything. Maybe it was just another usual day at the Dursleys. Merlin did he loath to be at the Dursleys.

Shaking his head, he kept on walking, ignoring the jaunting limbs of the haggard trees that snatched at him in the brisk fall breeze. All around the world carried on, little animals hardly perturbed by his appearance, tittered on while above day turned to night slowly, the sky casting an omen red color that would have had sailors fretting.

Yet, Harry walked on. Fingering large trees, seeping his fingers into the cracks, trying to place where he was why he was there. He figured after he had chosen his path the first time he wasn’t to be bothered again with the bloody woods. Apparently he was wrong.

His worn sneakers soaked into the moist forest trail, absorbing into the dirt just far enough to make them quite dirty but not enough to bother Harry as he walked.

Sighing, he reached a hill and grimly trekked up it, wishing for the bloody dream to end so he could get back to his real life. At least he had stopped mourning Sirius’s death.

In the beginning of the summer that was all he could do. Mourn and mope. He wanted nothing more than to just curl up in a ball and ignore life around him, just yearning to be with Sirius.

Then...the wood dreams started. Everything changed then. He was marking his way through the years, realizing things he never realized before, and then he came to the path and Professor Snape. That had changed a lot of things.

Then he chose the path...

The whirled around, his raven color hair flailing madly in the wind. His green eyes were wide, shining through the slowly engulfing darkness of the night, his heart pounding.

Had he chosen the wrong path? Was that why he was back? Did he do the wrong thing? He couldn’t tell and he didn’t know. Couldn’t he just turn around and trudge back to the fork and go down the other path. Did it work that way?

No, it couldn’t. One couldn’t just backtrack...could they?

Shaking his head, Harry gulped down a breath and spun around. What was it that Snape had said? Forward something? The best direction is forward...or the only?

Well, it didn’t matter. That was what he was going to do. Snape had gotten him into the mess and he would prove that he could finish it. He was going to keep going forward and if he died in the process...well at least he’d be with Sirius again.

Again he began to walk, more steadily and surely this time. His worn sneakers pouncing through the thickening shadows, glowing once and a while in the bright moon above.

Harry barely glanced up, figuring the moon to not be completely full but close to it, before going back to his paced walking.

Then, he reared upon another fork. A large oak in the center, and two paths, both too shadowy to see down, were waiting for him to chose.

However, he wasn’t alone.

Sitting at the base of the tree, looking wholly bored and impatient, was Professor Severus Snape...again.

The Potions Master looked up, annoyance flashing his features for a brief second.

“Sit, Potter,” was all he said, not bothering to move himself from the base of the oak. Surprising even himself Harry sat down. “Well, it took you long enough to get here.” The man snarled.

“What?” Harry retorted, annoyed. “I took the path you said to take, and now you’re saying I took too long! How long did you think it would take?”

“You’ll treat me with the proper respect, Potter.” Snape snarled, rustling slightly at the base of the oak. Harry glowered, annoyed by all that was happening, even more so with Snape being involved in it. “And for your information that’s not what I meant, and I never told you to take THAT path. Realize and remember that!”

“All right, then what did you mean?” Harry shot back, hot. “Sir.” He added in an afterthought.

“Do you really not know?” Snape asked, his voice toneless.

“Apparently not,” Harry responded, less cheekily then he had meant it to come off as.

“You’ve gotten yourself lost again,” Snape stated, simply.

“Err—lost again?” Harry echoed, confused.

“Yes, Potter, l-o-s-t.” Snape snarled snidely. Annoyed, Harry twitched in his seat, yearning to jump up.

“How the hell was I l-o-s-t before?” he demanded, glaring at Snape, sure that the ex-Death Eater turned spy was toying with him like always. He toyed with Sirius in the same way and led him to his death. Why should he trust Snape anyway?

“Think about it Potter,” Snape responded. “However, don’t waste my time doing so. What I want to know is if you’re going to be traveling a path any time soon.”

“Which one would with wisest?” Harry asked, peering down the paths, and seeing no difference because of the shadows.

“Oh no, Mr. Potter, that I will not tell...since my last suggestion was so well taken.” Snape sneered, his face bunched in shadows but dark eyes gleaming brightly. There was something in those eyes, something Harry couldn’t place.

“How’d I get lost again?” Harry asked, confused.

“You just did...all boys get lost some time or another.” Snape shrugged, as if it didn’t matter but it did. “You matter too much...” he sounded like a crowbar was forcing those words out of his mouth, “for you to slink again from us.”

“I’m just a pawn, doesn’t matter.” Harry shrugged, knowing Snape was referring to the prophecy.

“Is that what you truly believe, Mr. Potter?” Snape asked, leaning forward, eyes gleaming.

“That’s how Dumbledore treated me,” his voice carried more emotion than he thought it would...but he thought it was true.

“Ahh...but that’s just Dumbledore’s nature. Here,” he leaned forward, a stick in his hand, and began to scrape a design in the dirt. Harry peered over more intrigued than annoyed that it was Snape in front of him and not someone else.

Harry watched as Snape drew a chessboard in the dirt, the moonlight coincidentally playing perfecting across the drawing to light up every other square. Harry grinned at the irony.

“This Mr. Potter,” Snape pointed his stick to the front row, where all the pawns laid. “Is where you think you are.” In the middle of the line he drew a ‘HP’. “If that is so than this is were everyone else is...” he drew a line, ‘RW’ ‘HG’ ‘GW’ ‘LL’ ‘NL’ and then other letters, stretching off the chess board itself.

“Does that mean...we’re all—equal?” Harry asked tentatively.

“So, the great Harry Potter thinks he’s better than everyone else?” Snape snarled.

“NO!” Harry snapped, loudly. He didn’t want to be better than anyone! “Just the prophecy and all.”

“Ahh...that rambling bit of nitwit. Yes, Albus spoke to me of that. Tell me Potter,” he sat back, still holding the stick. “You, who rarely follow the rules, and listen to warning and suggestions in your own way..., are you truly going to succumb to the life of that prophecy? It’s...very...unlike you.” Those words sounded odd from Snape, Harry noted.

“It’s just...” Harry trailed off, confused more than before. Snape leaned forward again and drew on the other side of the board. Harry watched as he placed the same initials all over the pawn line, and then, put ‘HP’ by itself, neither in the pawn line nor in the other line. Just by itself. An odd feeling coursed through Harry.

“Is that what you’re aiming for, Mr. Potter? Because you’re starting to get there.” Snape asked, as he stood up.

“I’ve never been good in chess,” Harry mumbled, starring at the board. Had he been looking up he would’ve caught the smirk on Snape’s face and slightly amused shake of the head.

“Tell me, Mr. Potter, when you were first learning to play, did you always come closer to winning then after you learned the rules?” Snape asked, staring at Harry with an impassive look.

“I guess...but I didn’t know the rules. It just took longer, the game I mean.” Harry shrugged, examining Snape closely in case he was mental somewhat. He wouldn’t put it past someone being a spy on Tom Riddle.

“Exactly, you didn’t know the rules. Your moves were chaotic, and chaos always wins over logic in the long run.” Snape smirked, more to himself than Harry, and turned to go. “Make you’re decision Mr. Potter and come back. You’re, once again, needed.”

“Wait,” Harry jumped up. “Why you sir? Why not someone else...like Remus, or Ron or Hermione.”

“How well would you have listened to them Mr. Potter?” Snape asked an eyebrow quirked. “One tends to listen to their...‘enemies’ better than their friends. Hurry up and get back.” With that Snape left and Harry stared down at the chess board, debating which the right path was.

The first time he chose, he realized, was for Sirius. To move on, or to mourn to death. Now...now it was more serious.

He stared hard at the chess board, and after a long debating moment smiled.

“Checkmate,” he whispered, and eager to get free of the woods, he took off running down the left path.

Behind him, swirling gently in the wind and bathed in the bright moonlight, was the drawn chessboard. One side, the side where Harry was integrated into the pawn line, surrounded by others, equal and not alone, laying to the side of the left path while the other side, the one where he was alone, laid to the right.

Professor Snape in the end had given a suggestion in which path to take, had he meant it intentionally or not, Harry never knew.