After seeing that everything was alright with Hermione, Snape sent a letter to the Malfoys informing them of Draco's behavior, however, since the Malfoys were away on a business trip and Snape didn't expect a reply from them for at least a week. What he didn't expect was Dumbledore was now watching him like a hawk.

The man should have been in Slytherin with how he observed and manipulated people, Snape thought. Snape feared what Dumbledore might do he did something really out of character. He remembered June of 1995 when it was discovered that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for the 94/95 school year was an impostor. He did not feel like being interrogated with Veritaserum.

Snape also noticed that after the incident with Malfoy, a rift was forming in Slytherin house between those whose parents were Death Eaters or were sympathetic to their cause and those who weren't. He didn't realize how bad the divide was until his the first class potions class with Slytherins. It was Monday morning and he had to to teach third year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins.

He stalked into his classroom in his usual way that, for some reason that he could never figured out, gave all Hufflepuffs the creeps.

Right away he noticed that something was odd. The Hufflepuffs were all sitting in the middle of the classroom with his Slytherins on either side. He clearly remembered during the previous class, he had told the students to sit next to their assigned lab partners. For all his classes, he had tried to assign every student with a lab partner who was not from the same house.

He had two very good reasons for this.. One, he was hoping it will help improve Slytherin House's image. Second (and important for his sanity), he didn't want the Weasley twins to put their heads together and come up with another clever way to disrupt the class when he wasn't looking. He wished he did that in the old timeline. It would have spared him a few headaches.

"I believe I said in our first class that you were to sit with your lab partner." Snape commanded.

Snape watched all the students in the classroom get up and head to their lab partner. Then he heard some of his Slytherins made comments to their partners in Hufflepuff saying they didn't want to sit next to certain Slytherins and arguments about where to sit soon erupted.

"I can not teach a class when everyone is fighting about where to sit. Just find a seat and take it before I start assigning detentions." Snape scowled.

Snape had the same problem in every class during the first half of the week that contained Slytherins. It was giving him a headache. He decided he would bring this up at the next house meeting.

On Thursday, he found a book in the school library's catalog that had a reference to Deathly Hallows. It was in the restricted section, on the top self, literally in the corner of the library where most people wouldn't bother it. The book was called, "Pushing the Limits of Magic to its Outer Most Boundaries" and was written by Ignotus Peverell. The last person to check it out was Dumbledore back in 1945. He took it to his office to read. When he got to his office, the main door had a note on it.

Severus,

Please meet me in my office as soon as possible.

Albus

Snape had a sinking feeling about it. He went into his office, set the book on his desk and headed to Dumbledore's office.

After speaking the password to gargoyle that guarded the headmaster's office, he rode up the stairs to its entrance. Before he knocked he heard Dumbledore speaking to a man.

"This isn't much to go on, Albus. Most of the ingredients are easy enough obtain although getting lobalug venom and thestral tail hair may prove problematic," a voice said rather dryly. Snape realized that he couldn't recognize the voice.

"I have access to thestrals and Mr. Fletcher can get us some lobalug venom. It may take us years to get to get the potion right but between you and I Nicolas, we will be able to do this." Dumbledore replied.

"Agreed. I would like to know who this potion is for... Great. Perenelle says she can't find anything in the pantry because of potion supplies I recently bought. I have to find a new place to store my things now. Talk with you later, Albus." the man said back, sounding rather annoyed towards the end.

"Until then, old friend." Dumbledore chuckled.

With that, Snape decided to knock.

"Enter. Ah, Severus, lemon drop?" Dumbledore asked.

"No thank you." Snape declined. He had a hunch that Dumbledore laced his favorite sweet with a mild calming drought and he had no intention to become addicted to them as it appeared that Dumbledore was.

"Very well." Dumbledore said a little disappointed." Severus, this has been a rather disturbing week. I've been getting complaints from all teachers, except for Binns that the Slytherins are having problems getting along. It seems that the Slytherin's famous united front has disappeared. The other teachers and I wouldn't mind this front disappearing if it wasn't so disruptive."

"I will be talking to my students about their behavior this Friday during the house meeting. I believe my punishing Malfoy for using the foul epitaph "mudblood" outside of the library caused it Headmaster." Snape replied calmly trying to keep his occlumency shields up. Surprisingly, Dumbledore wasn't trying to probe his mind but he didn't want to take any chances.

"I agree. I'm glad that you are teaching your students not to use that word. However, I feel it maybe too late for some of them to prevent them from making the same mistakes you did."

"I agree. The less of that pure-blood ideology circulating Slytherin house, the fewer recruits the Dark Lord will have when he returns." Snape said dryly.

"Quite true. It could, however, cause some parents to send their children to Drumstrang to study under Karkoloff." Dumbledore pointed out.

"Karkoloff is no Death Eater. The only reason he hasn't been murdered is because those who are truly loyal and talked their way out of Azkaban don't want to dirty their names again. As soon as the Dark Lord returns, Karkoloff will flee out of fear for having helped send several Death Eaters to Azkaban, including ones that were in high ranking Ministry positions. The Dark Lord wouldn't be too pleased about that."

"I never thought of that..." Dumbledore said wondering. "Also, Severus, Mr. Malfoy has gotten himself into more trouble. Minevra caught him throwing Mr. Longbottom's Remembrall on the roof during today's flying lesson. She assigned him two detentions. She would have taken points from Slytherin as well but there isn't any points left to take away due to the recent events. This is the first time in many years that Slytherin has been in last place for the House Cup for so long."

"Lucius wouldn't be too pleased about his son getting into more trouble..." Snape grumbled.

"I can imagine. Malfoy senior has the ear of the Minister, which is troubling, and it would be quite embarrassing for him if his son gets detention every week, even if Fudge unfortunately doesn't hold it against him. Anyways, that is all." Dumbledore added.

Snape went back to his office and started to read the book he got from the library. The book was fascinating and Snape soon found out why it was in the restricted section. It talked about extremely advanced magic and potions that Snape never even heard of. Spells that can create ghosts based off of a room or other enclosures 'Memory' of a person, even when that person was still alive or if that person was a ghost already. Potions that sprayed at a ghost. That Ignotus Peverell was definitely into the dark arts, Snape thought.

Snape soon got to the section about the Deathly Hallows. He continued and reached the part about the Deathly Hallows. Snape learned that Ignotus Peverell and his two older brothers made the Deathly Hallows. The book described the Hallows and how they worked in enough detail that he was convinced the stone in the ring was indeed the Resurrection Stone. It was rather disturbing to find out that the Elder Wand, when used in conjection with the Resurrection stone could in theory make an unlimited supply of inferi. Ignotus Peverell stated him and his brothers never got a chance to test the theory because his eldest brother Antioch was murdered and the Elder Wand stolen. After the section about the Deathly Hallows, the book went on to talk about blood magic. Toward the end of the section Snape read:

While I will not discuss the making of Horcruxes, I will only say they are any object, living or not, that a piece of a witch or wizard's soul is stored in. To make a Horcrux requires you to perform darker magic then anything my brothers and I have ever attempted to do. It is not for the faint of heart. I heard stories of people who made Horcruxes and completely lost their ability to show love or compassion after making them. I do not wish to teach people how to become such monsters. People need to know to be a Master of Death, one much accept the fact they will eventually die, not find a way to defeat it. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death but it will never and shouldn't be destroyed.

What is worse then making a Horcrux is to turn a living person into one. A person who has a piece of someone else's soul inside of them will never truly be them self. They would take on personality characteristics as well as possess all magical abilities of the owner of the soul fragment. The person would even be prone to seeing things threw the owner of the soul fragment's eyes or the eyes of any horcrux that can see. It is also said the person could in theory be controlled as if they were under the imperious curse.

While there is various ways to destroy a living person who is a Horcrux without killing them, all of which are discussed in other books, none is more reliable then a potion that I have seen references to in various texts. The recipe for the potion was believed to have been destroyed in a fight between Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin in the Hogwarts library. However, enough people knew of the potion to make a mostly complete list of its ingredients. The known ingredients are as follows:

2 ashwinder eggs

5 finely chopped flubber worms

1 lb of doxy excrement

½ lb of jarvey fur

1 cup of lobalug venom.

36 square inches of moke skin

2 cups finely chopped monkshood

1 live common garden slug

2 drops of blood willing sacrificed from the potion's brewer

One thestral tail hair.

The potion from what I've read destroys the soul fragment by removing its magic core (not to be confused with the magic core of the soul fragment's owner) and merging it with the magic core the person the soul fragment resides in. Without a magic core, no soul or soul fragment can survive. Even Muggles and Squibs have magic cores but they are far to week to do anything useful other then make a soul or soul fragment stay bound to the realm of the living.

The drinker of the potion would not only acquire the magical abilities of the owner of the soul fragment but would have the combined magical potential of them self and the owner of the soul fragment. Any offspring, descendants, or other heirs would also possess these magical abilities.

It is said, but not confirmed, that the only reason Salazar Slytherin was a parslemouth was because his muggle father was turned into a Horcrux by a parslemouth and then had to drink this potion.

It is also said the effect the potion has on the drinker is similar to the Family Induction Ritual in that by magic only, the drinker becomes the child of the owner of the soul fragment that resided inside of them. They would not retain any of the personality treats they had from having the soul fragment in them however. This side effect of being magically adopted by the owner of the soul fragment has presented some rather interesting legal disputes in the couple of dozen recorded instances of people having to drink this potion. Needless to say it has been ruled repeatedly that the drinker belongs to both the family they have by blood and the one by magic and could not be disowned by the family they have by magic on the grounds the victim needed compensation for being violated..

I have attempted many times to recreate the potion over the years but have failed. Without knowing all the ingredients and the steps to brew it, the best you can hope for is a potion that makes an excellent stain remover.

Snape couldn't believe what he read. He jotted down the list of ingredients out on a spare piece of parchment. When he was done, he began to think.

'Dumbledore was the last person to check this book out. Why didn't he attempt to figure out how to brew the potion? Dumbledore maybe manipulative but he is a genius. Between him and Flamel, they would have figured out the ingredients and the steps to complete the recipe! How could he not have done anything to help Harry - the thoughtless manipulative old coot!' Snape thought to himself.

Just then, there was a knock on the door to his office that lead to the Slytherin common room. Snape put a book mark where he left off and set the book aside. He was curious to see what other things this Ignotus Peverell knew.

"Enter." Snape said.

It was Marcus Flint. Snape knew why he was here. He was there to discuss the upcoming Quidditch trials. Snape was glad that Harry wasn't on a team this year and hoped he would never be. The last thing he wanted was Draco and Harry fight over who is the better seeker even though Harry was clearly the better of the two. It would also give Harry a chance to do better in his studies, especially in potions.

The week before Harry's 6th year, Dumbledore informed Snape that he found out from a contact he had in the Ministry that Harry's OWL results were altered to allow him to take Advanced Potions under Slughorn. Apparently someone had leaked that Harry wanted to be an auror and Minister Scrimgeour, in an attempt to get Harry to work for the Ministry, secretly ordered Harry's grade changed from an A to an E. Severus had a strong feeling it was Umbridge who was the leak and it was probably before Voldemort had shown himself in the Ministry. Scrimgeour, according to Shacklebot and Tonks complained of the lack of new recruits after Voldemort's downfall claiming that all the ones they had would be retiring more or less at the same time and there wouldn't be enough even for peace time.

"Mr. Flint, is there a problem?" Snape asked.

"No. I just wanted to inform you that I will be holding the Quidditch try outs this weekend. I have to replace three players that have graduated." Flint explained.

"I know." Snape said.

"I just wish I could replace some of the current players, especially Higgs. The last two games, he caught the snitch by pure chance..." Flint said annoyed.

"There is nothing wrong with replacing players that you feel aren't up to par. I suggest you hold try outs for all positions to see if you can find people who are better. If you do that, it will force whichever players you do choose to fly their best in fear they may loose their position next year." Snape suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea. I will do that. Thank you, professor." Flint said before leaving.