Blearily, Harry rubbed his eyes and reached blindly for the place where he normally kept his glasses on the side table. Slipping them on, he sat up and glanced around the familiar surroundings of his four-poster with the curtains closed.

Better wake Ron up now. Heaven knows how long it will take otherwise.

Stumbling out of bed, he slowly walked over to the four-posted next to his... and got the shock of his life.

His own head was lying on the pillow.

With a muffled yell, Harry leapt backwards, got his feet tangled in someone’s clothes and fell to the floor with a loud thump.

“Huh? Wass’happenin’?” The boy in the bed opened brown eyes and started searching for his glasses like Harry had done only minutes before. Similar noises of unwilling people being disturbed from their sleep could be heard from the other beds as well.

The boy – James, Harry remembered – squinted down at Harry, who was lying tangled on the floor. “Huh? All right, Harry?”

“Yeah,” Harry’s voice was shaky, “Jus’ forgot about what happened, is all.”

James smirked. “Idiot,” he muttered cheerfully before settling back into his bed with a sigh, evidently preparing to go to sleep again.

“Oh no you don’t, James.” Lupin walked over and yanked the covers off the bed. Somehow, implausibly, Lupin was already dressed. “We have class in half an hour and I don’t to wait forever for you to get your sorry hide out of bed.”

“Remus!” James whined, trying to curl up in a ball. “Trying to sleep!”

“Up! Before I use Aguamenti on you.” Lupin raised his wand threateningly.

“Fine!” James rolled out of bed and onto the floor with a muffled thump.

That seemed to satisfy Lupin, who turned away to face the remaining two beds. “The same goes for you too, Sirius, Peter.”

Soft curses met these words but Harry noticed, with no small amount of amusement, that neither of them tried to defy this demand.

“Well.” Lupin turned to Harry and gave a benign smile that had become so familiar during his third year. “I have to go and make sure the younger years are up. Want to come?”

“Err,” Harry said, remembering what James had said about him probably being viewed as a ‘celebrity’. “Thanks but no thanks, Prof... err, Lupin. Moony,” he corrected at Lupin’s reproving look. “See you in a while.”

Lupin smiled again and walked out of the door, leaving Harry to stumble through getting up while thinking about the impossibility of somehow being in 1975. It was not a comfortable thing to think about at eight o’clock in the morning.

Bet Snape doesn’t have to get up and have to face PEOPLE this morning. Lucky git. But, of course, he’s down in the dungeons, conducting RESEARCH and probably doesn’t have to show his face even once all week. Whereas I, yet again, have to face being stared at for the whole time I’m here.

Harry sighed, realising that his inner rant wasn’t helping matters much and glanced over to where the others were almost ready as well, thankful that they didn’t look anymore awake than Harry felt.

“Come on,” James muttered, a huge yawn splitting the middle of his statement. “We’ve got to get down to breakfast now, ‘else they’ll be nothing left.”

Sleepily falling in to line behind James, Harry walked down to the slowly filling Common Room and out the Fat Lady’s portrait. All the way down to breakfast, Harry could feel eyes on him, but a few choice glares from James and Sirius stopped anyone from approaching or whispering within earshot. Harry was definitely starting to enjoy being an honorary Marauder.

The Great Hall became significantly quieter when they entered, but still no one approached, and Lupin had even managed to save them a seat away from everyone else, so when they sat down to eat, the mutterings though present were not decipherable and Harry was able to eat his bacon and eggs in peace. He missed Ron and Hermione already, but his future father and friends had already proved to be more than adequate company.

He spotted Lily down the table and waved, but she seemed to be deliberately avoiding his gaze and didn’t look up once. Harry sighed and went back to his breakfast, pretending not to feel unhappy.

He only became aware of the conversation around him when Sirius ducked his head and muttered, “Any minute now,” under his breath. Harry sat up straighter as he suddenly noticed all four of the Marauders were stealing surreptitious glances at the staff table. There was a loud shriek just as Harry turned his head in time to see a teacher staring in horror at her skin, which was completely bright-green.

“Yes!” Sirius and James hive-fived over the table while Pettigrew snorted in the background, none of them caring one jot about the bilious teacher glaring at them.

“That’s Professor Cassidy, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher,” Lupin murmured lightly, voice trembling in suppressed amusement. “She doesn’t like us much.”

“Really?” Harry muttered back dryly, watching Dumbledore chuckle as he restored the Professor’s colouring. Snape didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. “I wonder why.”

At that moment, Dumbledore rose to his feet and clapped his hands, immediately causing silence to fall across the Great Hall. “Good morning, everyone! I have a couple of notices this morning which must have just slipped my mind last night.” Several students laughed. “Now, dungeon five has finally been restored to its former colour and will be open for those who wish to practice extra potions. I have been asked to remind you that fluorescent yellow is not a preferred colour for a dungeon wall and could the perpetrators desist from decorating in future.”

Dumbledore twinkled at the Marauders over the now openly laughing students and Harry found himself laughing as well, imagining Snape’s face if such a prank had been carried out in his dungeons.

“On our next note, James Potter’s future son and a thirty five year old Severus Snape have accidently travelled back in time and will be staying with us for the coming week. Oh! And our school caretaker, Argus Filch, has reminded me to let you know that while corporal punishment is no longer permitted here, cleaning the dungeon floor with a toothbrush can be harrowing and painful, so please refrain from filling his office with dungbombs for the foreseeable future. Now, I think that is all. Off you chop and fill your heads with knowledge! Don’t worry; I’m sure it will have left again by the time evening is upon us!”

Dumbledore sat down again and promptly began to read the Daily Prophet as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Harry stared at him in the complete silence following his announcement, as dumbfounded as the rest of the school. He vaguely noticed that even the teachers were staring in disbelief.

Well, at least some things never change...

“Still mad, then?” Harry muttered faintly under his breath.

“Oh, undoubtedly,” Sirius said cheerily, grinning at the gobsmacked expressions of everyone in the room. “Pass the bacon, would you?”

Fingers numb, Harry did precisely what he was told, vaguely wondering if he should wave, now that the entire school save Dumbledore had turned their attention to him instead.

“See? It’s not so bad,” Sirius commented as they walked down to the dungeons. Amazingly, nobody seemed to want to approach the Marauders directly, despite the fact that Harry really was a time-traveller – confirmed by Dumbledore don’t ya know – because apparently, anyone who got on the wrong side of the Marauders suffered semi-permanent side-effects. Harry still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On one hand, it was to his benefit, but on the other, it didn’t really seem all that fair to someone who was just curious...

Shrugging, he settled outside the Potions classroom with the other four, glancing around at his ‘class-mates’ with interest. Nothing seemed to have changed much over the coming twenty years; the Slytherins were still glaring and the Gryffindor girls were still giggling and sneaking glances.

Why couldn’t Snape and I just have taken Polyjuice and Obliviate everyone who saw us? Damn Dumbledore!

Harry immediately felt guilty about his thoughts and tried to shut out the little voice that seemed to want to grumble about his situation as much as possible. After all, this was a once in a lifetime chance to learn about his parents and their friends.

“Oi, Prongs,” Sirius muttered. “Look who’s here.” He pointed down the corridor leading deeper into the dungeons, where a skinny, black-haired boy was leaning against a wall, large nose buried deeply in a book. With a thrill of shock, Harry realised the boy was none other than Snape.

Before he could stop them, James and Sirius were striding towards young Snape. All the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck rose as he watched them go to stand on either side of the smaller boy.

No, don’t...!

James snatched the book out of Snape’s hands and squinted at the title. “What’cha readin’, Snivellus?”

“None of your business, Potter!” the boy snarled as he made a grab for the book, greasy hair swinging in ratty strings around his face.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Sirius grabbed Snape’s bony shoulder and pushed him back against the wall, pinning him down. “We still haven’t got you back from the time you ratted us out to Filch.”

Young Snape’s eyes darted frantically around the small space, looking for a way out, and they settled on Harry, who was too stunned to move. The boy’s face stretched into a sneer. “Well, well. It seems that Potter ended up spawning. Such a pity he couldn’t have made a better contribution.”

“What the fuck do you mean by that, Snivellus?” James snarled, golden sparks flying from the end of his wand as he stepped back and pulled it out. “Who asked for your opinion anyway?”

“It’s not as if any normal person would ask him for it!” Sirius said and laughed; the sound cold and harsh in the darkness of the dungeons. He roughly released Snape and pulled out his own wand. “Feeling lonely were you, Snivelly?”

Harry could only stare, something cold lodged in his throat and chills running down his spine, as he watched the awkward, gangly boy in front of them, the vicious sneer only partially visible through long strands of greasy hair.

Snape’s wand was out and his eyes were darting to each and every one of the Marauders; James and Sirius, the aggressors; Pettigrew, watching eagerly from the background; Lupin, who seemed determined to appear temporarily blind and deaf; and Harry, who was frozen to the spot. The only thought that seemed to fit in Harry’s head at that moment was how utterly impossible it was for Snape to be a teenager.

Don’t be ridiculous, Harry. You didn’t think he’d just sprung from the ground, did you?

The galling thing was that the answer was yes.

“Expelliarmus!” “Impedimenta!”

Snape managed to dodge the second spell, but his wand fell victim to the first, spinning away through the air to land easily in James’s hand, and the Slytherin boy froze, seemingly in horror, as he realised he was completely at the mercy of the Marauders.

“Now, Padfoot, what shall we do with him?” The same nasty glint was back in James’s eyes that had been there the night before. “Stick his feet to the floor? Transfigure his robes? Or something altogether more entertaining to teach the slimeball a proper lesson?”

Sirius’s laugh was downright malicious this time as he raised his wand and prepared to hex the defenceless Snape. Harry felt anger boil up in his stomach and he scrabbled for his wand, determined to teach Sirius a lesson in humility he wouldn’t forget.

“Sternueremus!”

Snape was suddenly doubled over in a huge sneezing fit which over as quickly as it started, but was strong enough to leave him weak and shaking.

How dare he even think about attacking someone who’s defenceless and outnumbered?

And then Harry saw something that made his blood freeze. There, so far back in the shadows that his form could almost be imagined, was the real Snape, watching the confrontation with all the intensity of a vulture closing in on its meal.

“Stop!” Harry was almost startled at how loudly his voice rang in the narrow corridor but the temper he was in made it easy to ignore. “He’s unarmed and outnumbered, for God’s sake!”

Snatching Snape’s wand out of James’s unresisting hand – ignoring the sharp sting the unknown wand gave him as his fingers came into contact with the wood – Harry crossed the four foot gap between the Marauders and Snape, and shoved the thin stick of wood at the other boy, who immediately grabbed it without a word.

Harry wasn’t expecting thanks, nor did he get any. The younger Snape glared at him with such concentrated hatred that Harry felt himself taking a large step back, wondering what the hell he had done to deserve it this time.

“I don’t need your charity, Potter.” The word was said with as much venom as it had been the first time Snape had called his name from the class register.

Harry said nothing, instead watching the way the Slytherins were looking at Snape with disgust, then at the Gryffindors who seem to have nothing but hatred for the fifteen year old... all save for Lily who stood across from them, pity welling in her eyes. Snape would loath pity and he knew that if the young Snape looked in either Harry’s eyes or his future mother’s, that would be precisely what he would see.

Soft footsteps echoed through the corridor.

“Well, well. What do we have here?”

Harry closed his eyes as the soft, deadly voice echoed from the shadows, much closer than he could have thought possible.

When did he move?

Snape, however, didn’t spare a second glance for Harry, instead choosing to unleash the full loathing of his gaze on the Marauders. James and Sirius still had their wands in their hands and by the look Snape was giving them, Harry was suddenly very glad he’d never managed to get to his own before he lost his temper.

“Fighting in the corridors is against the rules, Mr Potter, Mr Black. No matter what you might think, you are not exempt from the rules.”

Sirius and James were currently gawping in a very unattractive way, Harry noticed. So were most of the other people in the corridor. Obviously they had heard the Headmaster’s notice at breakfast but had chosen not to properly believe it.

Well, they’re paying for it now.

Realising that young Snape had slid back into the shadows and was watching the scene with a wary eye prompted Harry to do the same. As long as you stayed out of older Snape’s way, you could survive mostly intact. Unless your name was Potter, of course. Luckily, Snape had found a much better target for his unfair discipline methods and that was just fine with Harry.

James finally managed to reclaim his voice after a lot of sputtering, which, in his case, was a very bad idea. “What the hell, Snivellus? Just because you never amounted to anything more than a dried up old schoolteacher doesn’t mean you suddenly have authority over us!”

Harry was hit by the temptation to either put his hand over his eyes and groan aloud or smirk widely at the school bully getting his comeuppance.

You’re not the one with the advantage this time, James.

“Indeed,” Snape whispered softly, the venom in his tone enough to make anyone flinch. “Let us see what you make of this then. Thirty points from Gryffindor for fighting in the corridors. Each.”

“That’s not fair!” Sirius roared. Gesturing towards the place where young Snape was lurking he continued loudly, “He had his wand out as well! And I don’t see you reprimanding him! Though I suppose that would be too Freudian for even you to handle,” he finished with a vindictive drawl.

For God’s sake, Sirius. SHUT UP!

“...and a further twenty points from each of you due to your blatant disrespect of an authority figure,” Snape finished calmly, a nasty smirk hovering around the corners of his mouth.

“But, that’s...” James seemed to have finally grasped the full implications of the situation. “That’s one hundred points from Gryffindor.”

“Well done, Mr Potter,” Snape purred mockingly. “You seem to have grasped the conception of calculation superbly. Now,” he snapped, voice turning harsh again, “another word out of either of you and you will both be receiving detention until you leave this school. Am I... understood?”

James snatched Sirius’s forearm to forestall any further brash comments and nodded tightly.

Sneer curling the edge of his mouth, Snape gestured sharply at the classroom door. “Good. Now get in. All of you!”

A sudden heaviness settled in Harry’s stomach as he realised that it was Snape, and not whoever was the Potions Professor in this time, who would be teaching the class.

Why? I thought he was meant to be working on the antidote.

Warily, he slid into the seat beside Lupin and stared at the back of Snape’s head. Snape remained snidely oblivious as he turned and surveyed the rest of the class.

“Professor Slughorn is temporarily indisposed and as such, I have the dubious pleasure of covering your lesson. Rest assured that any punishments I give out are fully valid and will have yet more serious consequences if ignored. I should hope that take this as fact without having to...” Snape’s eyes slid to James and Sirius, “test it out.”

Harry just gritted his teeth and concentrated on his potion as the lesson started, hoping that Snape wouldn’t revert to his old antagonism towards him in the middle of it.

Lupin was a surprisingly easy partner to work with and, thankfully, Snape seemed determined to ignore Harry’s very existence, instead choosing to demoralise James and Sirius – and sometimes even Pettigrew – at every opportunity. Young Snape stayed quiet but watched everything through an unnerving mask of impassiveness, looking, to Harry, rather like a serpent waiting to strike.

It was not an impression that inspired confidence.

As the end of class approached, and as Harry was slowly beginning to relax into the idea that worst might be over, James finally reached the end of his patience.

“Yeah, that’s right! Lord it over us just so you can comfort yourself with the fact that you’re nothing more than a pathetic bully who...” James continued on, calling Snape every foul name under the sun and Snape just stood there, watching, his face blank, until the boy had finally run out of steam.

Only then did he speak. “Mr Potter.”

The whole class had turned towards the confrontation the minute James had opened his mouth but now they could only sit, frozen. Snape’s mouth was pressed in such a thin line it was completely white and his normally blank eyes were burning with anger.

Young Snape and several other Slytherins unconsciously shifted so that they were closer to the door. Harry would have willingly joined them if it hadn’t been for the fact that Snape was between him and the way out. Instead, he stood his ground and braced for the explosion.

Now he’s in for it...

“My failings?” Snape’s voice was so soft that even James would have had to strain to hear it through the bubble and hiss of boiling cauldrons. “Why should anyone be interested in my failings when yours are so much more spectacular?”

James flinched, evidently despite himself, and gripped the table in front of him tightly as blatantly mesmerised as prey before a deadly snake would be. All Harry knew was that whatever was coming would be big... and he had a terrible feeling that he knew exactly what it was. His throat stretched with the effort to say ‘No!’ but no sound seemed to be able to make its way out.

“At least I wasn’t incompetent enough to get myself killed at the tender age of twenty one along with my young wife.”

The silence in the dungeon was suddenly deafening. James looked like he was going to be sick, Lily was sobbing quietly and Sirius looked ready to commit murder. Even Snape seemed to have realised he’d gone too far.

Harry didn’t even have time to think, he just knew he had to react.

The whole room flinched as a chair crashed loudly to the floor. “You liar!” Harry yelled, voice hoarse with suppressed anger as every grain of respect he’d had for Snape in the past months crumbled.

“You’re lying,” he continued, voice quieter, yet just as intense.

Quick, something, anything I knew about Mum...

“They’re both alive and you know it. Mum’s just published a book on her Charms work, for Merlin’s sake! And Dad’s got a high-paid job at the Ministry. How dare you say that they’re both dead!”

Snape seemed to have caught on quickly enough to Harry’s attempt for covering up his slip. Mouth curling into his customary sneer, he spat out, “I’d hardly call a career as an Auror lucrative. More likely, your father is simply basking in his extremely generous family fortune.”

Unable to think of anything else to say, Harry stood silently, his breath whistling harshly through his teeth as he resisted the urge to scream at Snape for having been so callous.

“Bottle up your potions and leave them – labelled, mind you – on the desk. Then, you may leave. Mr Potter, senior,” Snape flicked a careless finger in James’s direction, “you will report to your Head of House and let her know that you are expected to complete a month’s worth of detention for your continued disrespect.”

It was proof of how shaken James was by Snape’s ‘lie’ that he only managed a weak sneer before he left the classroom. Young Snape seemed to be in turns delighted and worried with the way things had turned out, which only served to fuel Harry’s ire at the one who had started all of this.

“Mr Potter, junior,” Snape continued. “Stay behind.”

Harry sighed heavily and turned back from where he had just been about to escape through the classroom door. Lupin gave him a sympathetic look and pressed a chocolate frog into his pocket when no one was looking. Evidently, even as a boy, he still had the idea that chocolate could solve everything. Harry was still touched by the gesture, though.

Returning to the front of the classroom, Harry stood still, eyes straight ahead and waited as the last few people trickled out of the door. He didn’t look round even when the lock clicked or when Snape started clearing up. In fact, it was only when Snape came and stood directly in front of him that he was forced to move his gaze from a stone in the wall to Snape’s face.

“Mr Potter... Harry.”

Normally Harry would have been gratified to see Snape even a little discomfited but today he was so angry he didn’t care in the slightest.

How could you do that? How could you even think of telling them, let alone saying it out loud? I thought even you would have more common decency than that! More fool I.

“Slughorn, the Professor for this class, will be teaching again after today. Seeing as he knows the layout of the dungeons and the store ingredients in this time better than I, he offered to set up a work room for me in exchange for teaching his classes. Rest assured, I will be working on the reversal potion for us before the day is out.”

Silence. Harry simply stared at Snape, imagining using his pestle to smash in the man’s ridiculous nose while he waited for whatever else he had to say.

“Your timely actions today were... well thought out.”

After what you did, do you really expect me to accept THAT as an apology?

Snape was silent was silent for a moment, almost as if he really had expected an answer to that. The man finally cleared his throat and said, grudgingly, “What I said today was not intentional, nor was the potential damage it might have caused had you not been able to salvage the situation. My... apologies for that.” The last part had almost sounded as if it were painful to say.

Harry met Snape’s blank gaze unflinchingly, feeling his jaw tighten. “With all due respect, sir: fuck you.” He turned and ran for the classroom door, silencing and locking spells crumpling easily before his temper-fuelled wand, and then he was running, running, with no destination in mind, feeling more betrayed than his brain logically thought he had any right to.

“Hey.” Sirius sat down beside him and clapped a hand on his arm as Pettigrew sat down on the other side. “You alright, there?”

Harry gave him a wry smile. “Just peachy, thanks.”

“That Snape,” Sirius sneered viciously, “right bastard he is.”

“Ha!” Harry threw his head back and glared at the ceiling. “You can say that again.”

Pettigrew chuckled weakly. “Snape’s a right bastard,” he muttered, before quickly glancing around as if there was someone besides Moaning Myrtle able to hear them.

Sirius snorted. “And I thought the Snape we have was bad. Looks like some things get worse with age.”

“Yeah,” Harry joked weakly, “like mould.”

Sirius threw his head back with a loud bark of laughter while Pettigrew snickered somewhat nervously. “Never a truer word said. We’ll get him back, mark my words!”

Harry’s smile was stronger this time. When Sirius had hexed the unarmed Snape, Harry had been so angry with him, but that was before he had thought Snape capable of doing what he did... And right now, Harry was prepared to hate Snape just as much as he had before the man had started privately tutoring him.

“How’re we going to do that, then?”

Pettigrew let out a laugh which he immediately tried to cover by putting his hands to his mouth. Sirius clapped Harry on the shoulder again, winking conspiratorially. “Don’t worry, James and I have already started cooking something up. I’ll tell you all about it later, but first there’s something we all want to show you. One question though: what’re you doing in a girls’ bathroom?”

“An abandoned girls’ bathroom,” Harry replied, smirking. “No one ever comes in here and...” – he flicked a glance towards the sink – “it brings back a few interesting memories. I felt like being distracted from thinking about the greasy git for a few hours.”

“Ha, greasy git! Good one!” Sirius snorted as he hauled Harry to his feet. Peter got up too and started following them towards the door. “What interesting memories exactly?”

“How about brewing Polyjuice in my second year so that me and my friend could sneak into the Slytherin Common Room.”

“Wow...” Pettigrew gasped. “You brewed Polyjuice?”

“Well... My friend Hermione – she’s the smartest in our year – brewed it while me ’n Ron helped with shredding and stuff. We even stole stuff from Snape’s private store to get it done...”

That line of conversation was enough to carry them all back to the Common Room – Pettigrew and Sirius quizzing him every step of the way – and despite the fact that he was careful not to mention the Basilisk, Harry still felt it was rather imprudent to discuss something so secret in the corridors... not that he could bring himself to care of course.

“Hey, James!” Sirius yelled as soon as they entered the dorm. “Right little rule breaker you’ve got here. Evans would be really unhappy.”

James looked up from a book he was studying and set a phial of blue liquid in its centre. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Sirius managed to ruffle Harry’s hair affectionately before he managed to break away from his future godfather’s hold. “Illicit brewing, sneaky plots...”

“Perfect Marauder material!” the two black-haired boys chorused. James laughed and chucked the phial of potion resting on the book at Harry, who easily caught it midair. “Drink half of that. Been working ever since supper on it.”

Harry glanced at the liquid dubiously. “What is it?”

James leaned back and smirked casually. “Drink it and see.”

Harry gave him a sour look. “If I wake up tomorrow covered in yellow tentacles, you’re dead!” All four Marauders opened their mouths to protest, but Harry waved them away, thinking that if you couldn’t trust your parents, you couldn’t trust anyone. “All right, all right! I’m drinking.”

The drink was very warm on its way down and almost immediately he felt a hot tingling spreading the full length of his spine. Lifting his eyes, he looked towards the transfixed Marauders, strangely hearing Snape’s voice in his head telling him what a dunderhead he was for drinking an unknown potion. He easily brushed it aside.

“All right, guys.” He took a deep breath as the tingling hit a new peak. “I’ve drunk it now. What does it do?”

“You’ll see in a minute,” James told him eagerly.

“What...?” Harry gasped and almost blacked out as his whole body fizzed and crumpled simultaneously.

Strangely energised, he opened his eyes and gave a soft cry. Everything was so sharp, so bright! A bright flash distracted him for a moment and he turned towards the huge creatures inhabiting the room with him. A large shape moved towards him and he hissed in anger before realising it was only Boy-Who-Smells-Like-Rat. He blinked in surprise as he realised his thoughts were strangely indistinct.

What on Earth did they do to me?

Large hands closed around him and gently lifted him off the ground before allowing him to settle comfortably on the leather-covered forearm. Fingers stroked the feathers on his chest and he chirred in enjoyment even as his mind raced.

Feathers? What? What AM I?

He shifted uncomfortably as his stronger senses started to pick up on the emotions swirling around him; the one holding him tasted of nervousness and a darker resentment of never-being-good-enough. The dark pelted ones both tasted of excitement but while one seemed completely carefree, the other’s mind wasn’t quite focused on the situation, indicating a suppressed worry about something. And the brown-haired, tired-eyed one...

He shuddered. That one’s scent practically screamed danger.

He hissed again and ruffled his feathers, confusion filling his mind about what on Earth he could be. Yes, the emotions, or moods, he’d sensed were something he would have picked up on in his human form, but now they were so much sharper, clearer, and his mind was focusing on them as if his life depended on it.

Wait a minute... Human form?

Before he could get much further with his reasoning, the world changed again and he fell to the floor with a heavy thump. His senses dwindled until he was just Harry once again, breathing in the dusty air of the dorm carpet. Conversely, his brain seemed to fill with extra, almost needless thoughts and he gasped as his reasoning returned.

“You... you...” He scrambled to his feet and turned towards James. “Did that potion just turn me into an Animagus?”

James laughed loudly. “Not quite. It’s the starter potion to show you what shape you have. From here on in, it’d be a whole ton of Transfiguration work to become an actual Animagus.”

“Yeah.” Sirius leaned against his bed while vigorously shaking a square of card as if to cool it. It looked suspiciously like a developed photograph. “Took us three years to actually change into our animal forms without any outside help.”

Harry resisted the urge to say only three years? and climbed shakily to his feet. Lupin hurried forward to help him and Harry almost flinched as an echo of the bird’s fear resounded through him. However, it was fairly easy to overcome.

“Thanks, Moony. So, what was I?”

“Ta da!” Sirius brandished the card, thus confirming it was indeed a photo, in front of Harry’s nose. “Fantastic shot, don’t you think? Should be marked to go down in history.”

Harry snorted and rolled his eyes as soon as he caught a glance of the cross-eyed kestrel, which was clearly the subject of the shot, blinking in evident confusion. “Oh, yes. Brilliant.” Then, unable to help himself he took the photo from Sirius and had a closer look. The kestrel was looking less cross-eyed, but was still visibly confused. “This... this was really me?”

“Yep!” James said cheerfully, leaning over his shoulder to get a closer look. “You must be a really great flyer if you got a kestrel for an Animagus. Good on ya!”

“I’m... not bad, yeah,” Harry agreed, flushing at the praise.

“So,” Sirius started, his tone suddenly weighted down by mock-seriousness, “the potion of animal wisdom hath spoken! What shall we call this latest Marauder to truly induct him to our order?”

The gravity of the situation was almost immediately broken by James shouting, “Shut up, Sirius, you prat!” and tussling him to the floor, but the sentiment remained the same.

“How about ‘Windhover’?” Lupin asked quietly. “Kestrels are sometimes known as that in certain parts of the country.”

“The Moony hath spoken!” Sirius yelled, arm flailing widely as he tried to throw James off. “I dub thee, ‘Windhover’!” He reached over to touch Harry on the shoulder, but ended up whacking him in the forehead as James yanked him back again.

Harry didn’t mind. He was laughing too much to really care.

“Well, at least it’s better than Prongslet,” Harry muttered after everyone had calmed down again, shooting a dark glance in Sirius’s direction. “I’ll tell Snape you tried to steal ingredients if you ever call me that again.”

Sirius’s eyes went huge. “Oi! That’s not playing fair!”

“Nope,” Harry said cheerfully. “But it’ll stop you from calling me that again, won’t it?”

There was a lot of grumbling from Sirius’s general direction which Harry decided to take as a yes. “So, what’re going to do to get back at the lying git?” Harry could feel his temper rising from merely remembering what Snape had said. He shoved it back and turned to James. “Sirius said you had something in mind?”

James’s face paled a little as worry started to crease his forehead. “Listen, Harry,” he murmured softly, seriously. “Was what you said really the truth? Was Snape really lying?”

Harry felt a sharp pain constrict his throat and he suddenly found it very difficult to force words out past the lump in it. Only his fury at Snape, which had increased tenfold the moment he glimpsed the insecurity in James’s face, made him able to speak at all. “Of course he was lying!” he snarled, temper thick in his tone.

“You an’ Mum are alive and well and probably worried sick for me right about now.” His throat closed tighter, but he forced himself to go on, feeling strangely protective about his father’s innocence of the horrors ahead. “Besides, why would Snape say that stuff about Aurors being rubbish if it weren’t a lie to start with? It’s not like Snape would try to cover up to protect our feelings!”

James’s expression cleared, a huge grin splitting his features. “Yeah! Yeah, ‘course! It’s not like Snape would ever do anything but try to make us miserable. Slimy bastard.”

Sirius’s expression was almost feral. “We need to do something that’ll really teach him a lesson.”

“Nothing dangerous!” Harry and Lupin snapped almost simultaneously before giving each other sheepish grins.

“We don’t want detention, do we?” Harry continued. “Besides, they’re pranks; they’re meant to be funny, so no humiliation either,” he said firmly, giving them all a stern look. “We can still drive him mad, but the last thing we want is a Snape with good grounds for retaliation. He can do much worse than us ‘cos he’s a teacher. So, be careful!”

Lord, I sound like Hermione. Ha! As if Hermione would ever willingly participate in this.

“That’s another thing,” – Sirius was scowling at him, which couldn’t be good – “when we were sorting Snape out earlier, you gave him his wand back! What the hell was that about?”

Harry sighed and fought the urge to cradle his head in his hands. “Have you ever tried sneezing with broken ribs?” Harry had once and he never wanted to repeat the experience.

Four brows wrinkled in confusion. “But Snape doesn’t have broken ribs...” Sirius paused and then added uncertainly, “Does he?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Not as far as I know, but that’s not the point!” He leaned forward and looked at them all intently. “If Snape had had broken ribs this morning, he would have been in agony by the time the spell ended. In fact, if someone’s ribs are broken badly enough and they have a sneezing fit, one of the ribs could end up piercing the lung and killing that person!” He was pretty certain that was true. He’d heard it on the telly once while he was still stuck in his cupboard.

Still, even if it wasn’t true, it sounded authentic enough and that was all Harry needed. The Marauders were all looking green.

“Err, so no sneezing fits. Got it,” Sirius nodded sharply and Harry almost snickered aloud at his quick capitulation.

“OK,” Harry said, glad he’d managed to at least teach one of them some sense. For now. “Any other ideas of what we can do?”

“A few,” James said, rallying. “But we already have,” he winked at Pettigrew, Lupin and Sirius, “plans for tomorrow; and then it’s the full moon on Sunday night” – Lupin smiled wanly – “but after that we can begin working on what to do with Snape.”

“Or, in other words, setting into motion The Great Campaign of ‘Getting Snape’,” Sirius agreed.

“And I thought you were strange when you were an adult,” Harry muttered, smirking.

“Oi! Keep going on like that and we’ll never tell you about the food fight we’ve got planned for tomorrow lunch!”

“Food fight?” Despite himself, Harry perked up with interest. “What food fight?”

“Ah, alas!” Sirius yelled over James’s attempt at explanation. “I have divulged the plan! Too soon! Too soon!”

“Err...” Harry frantically glanced around at the other Marauders, “Is it just me, or is he getting even weirder?”

Lupin sighed. “He gets like this, sometimes. You just have to ignore him. Mostly.”

“Hmph.”

“There, see? He’s sulking now.”

“Now, back to the Fantastic Food Fight!”

“I spoke too soon,” Lupin muttered despondently, causing Harry to snort with barely concealed laughter. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much carefree fun. Sure, Voldemort was still out there, but he wasn’t Harry’s concern anymore. Not in this time.

In fact, his high spirits lasted all the way through the remainder of the evening. After Sirius had explained their Plan for the upcoming, grand food fight, they all snuck down to the kitchens for food; second supper for the Marauders and – at the others’ insistence – a veritable feast for Harry, who hadn’t had the heart to go down to either lunch or supper.

The House Elves outdid themselves as usual and the five boys stumbled back to the dorm stuffed and happy, their pockets laden with sticky cakes for later... or possibly even for breakfast.

It was only when Harry was lying alone in his bunk, listening to the peaceful, steady breathing of the others, that he had to fight the sharp sting at the back of his eyes as he remembered that within a mere twenty years’ time, one of the occupants of the room would be dead, another would be half mad from an unjust incarceration, one would be traitor to them all and the last would end up lonely and downtrodden, struggling to find work in even the simplest of professions.

And at that moment, Harry’s own future didn’t look much better than theirs.