"I think it would be prudent to establish a couple of ground rules," Severus Snape said to Harry Potter.

They stepped out of the public call box that had lifted them to the ground level from St. Mungo's. The fifteen-year-old boy was frowning, his green eyes slitted in a glare. They began their walk in tense silence, but it only lasted a few minutes.

"I could have told you that it wasn't coming off. We didn't need to go to St. Mungo's," Harry grumbled.

Severus ground his teeth together, he was not going to let things unravel again. He would remain calm. The raven-haired man took a few deep breaths before attempting to communicate with the boy.

"You got a permanent tattoo without the permission of your guardian - that would be me - Mr. Potter."

"I don't need anyone's permission. I'm almost of age," Harry pointed out.

"You are two years away from being of age and in the meantime your safety is entirely my concern." Severus shook his head. The teenager was being deliberately obtuse. "As I said before, I think we need to establish some ground rules, for both our sanity."

Harry smirked bitterly. "Sanity? I'm the Boy-Who's-Going-To-Bloody-Die, what do I need with Sanity?" he asked.

They had reached a crossroad and Severus could not reply until the rush of humanity had passed between them. Car horns honked, people yelled, the bustle of the city in mid-day grabbed Harry's attention and for a moment there was no Voldemort or illegal tattoo or Snape. Just the humanity that he glimpsed hungrily.

Across the street, Harry spied a tall, thin man in a brown overcoat running towards a blue Police public call box with a brown-skinned woman in tow. Their expressions were ones of excitement and borderline fear. Harry thought he saw a crossbow lashed to the man's back.

"Harry!" Severus' abrupt call interrupted the boy's gazing.

"What?" he shot back in irritation.

"I am trying to have an adult conversation with you and you were ignoring me," Severus was exasperated with the boy.

"I was -" Harry glanced back across the road but the couple and the blue box were gone "- looking at something."

A hurried passerby shoved past the young wizard, elbowing him in the side. Harry was about to cry out in protest, but a group of three were walking towards him and he had to quickly bow out of the way. A snippet of their conversation reached his ears.

"Honestly, the world is really going downhill," a tall, regal-looking twenty-something said, flattening his blond hair with a hand.

"I think it started downhill and has been trudging steadily upwards. Have you seen the new iPhone?" his friend, a black-haired young man replied. He wore a brown leather coat and a blue bandana around his neck.

"You're both wrong. The world's the same as it ever was," the last of the trio, an olive-skinned girl with beautiful long black hair said, a hand going to her hip as she rolled her eyes upwards.

"How would you know, Gwen?" the blond man asked sarcastically.

And then they were out of hearing and Harry was trying to shake off the feeling that they were somehow important. He shuddered and had to jog to catch up with Snape.

"I'm listening, really." Harry didn't know why he said that. "Now what are the 'rules'?" he asked, putting air quotes around the word.

Severus fixed him with a stern glare. "Rule number one: pay attention to your surroundings."

Harry slapped a hand to his forehead. "Please, tell me you're not Mad Eye using polyjuice potion."

Snape's lips curved upwards in a momentary smile. "I assure you, I am not Moody."

"Good," Harry whispered too low for his teacher to hear.

"Rule number two: you are not to alter your body in any permanent fashion without my approval. Rule number three -"

Severus kept on walking and talking, glancing down at Harry every couple of minutes to make sure he was listening. Harry let his mind wander, the sound of Snape's monotone made this especially easy. They walked past a blond-haired man in a business suit and sensible blue tie exiting a car as he answered a cell phone call.

"Devlin. Yes. No. We'll have to wait until after the autopsy. What?" the conversation faded away as the man turned and walked away from Harry lost almost instantly in the crowd.

The next thing that caught the boy's eye was a sports car stopped at a traffic light. A fish head was all he could see of the driver. Harry didn't have time to call Snape's attention to the abuse of magical protocol before the light turned and the car sped away. Seconds later, an SUV full of people stopped in the middle of the street and a dark-haired woman leaned out the passenger window.

"Have you seen a blow-fish driving a sports car?" she asked him.

Harry pointed down the road the way the fish had gone. It was all a bit surreal, and then, the SUV was gone, hot on the trial of whatever witch or wizard was misusing their magical abilities for a bit of fun.

The day could not get any weirder, Harry decided. It was only then that he realized Snape had stopped talking. He swallowed and chanced a look up at the man. Only Snape wasn't there any longer. Harry looked around frantically.

"Professor Snape!" Harry yelled, searching the sidewalk and nearby shops for the man.

Then he heard talking in a nearby alley. It wasn't Snape's voice, but Harry was certain that the man had fallen into some sort of trouble. The teenage wizard drew his wand out of his pocket and held it close to his side, ready to use. Peeking around the edge of the alley, Harry's jaw fell open in surprise at the scene playing out.

"Just there, please," a tall man with dark curly locks was instructing Severus to stand next to a garbage bin. "Honestly, Snape, we're lucky we stumbled across you when we did. I would have had to spend ages finding someone the right height. Right hand up, yes, just like that. Now, look at me. Perfect!"

Another man came into view then from the other end of the alley. He had short red hair and leaned heavily against a cane.

"Sherlock, will you stop bothering the man? I'm sure he has places to be."

"Of course, he has places to be. We all have places to be," the man, Sherlock, responded sarcastically.

Harry walked forward. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

Severus raised an eyebrow. "I said I would be back directly." He said the words, but what Harry was really hearing was, 'ha! I knew you weren't listening to me.'

"I knew that," Harry lied, "but who is this?"

Sherlock looked victorious, his face shinning. "I've got it, Watson!" He gave the older wizard a pat on the arm. "Thank you, Snape. We'll talk later. Right now, I have a murderess to catch. Come on, Watson!"

There was some shuffling of the cane to an arm and then both men were dashing out of the alley on their way to Merlin only knew where. Harry followed Snape back onto the sidewalk.

"That was Sherlock Holmes, a muggle detective."

Now it was Harry's turn to raise an eyebrow. "You know a muggle detective?" he asked.

"He is more of a necessary acquaintance, really," the potions master replied. "He helps me procure potions ingredients of a delicate nature."

Harry pressed, but that was all Snape would say on the matter. Then his guardian picked up where he had left off.

"Rule number forty-six: no pets in the dungeons."

Harry's eyes widened. He had missed forty-three rules? This was not good.

"You know, that's a lot of rules. Maybe you should just write them down somewhere so I don't forget any of them," Harry suggested with a winning smile.

Snape thought about it for a moment. "Excellent idea, Harry. Rule number forty-seven -"

Harry could not help it. Something about the man's voice just made his attention wander. It was like an automatic reaction. He tried to listen, he really did, but by the time they reached their destination ten minutes later, he was still trying to focus.

"That is all, for now," the professor said as they entered an unmarked building and stepped into the elevator.

"Where are we going, anyway... sir?" Harry asked.

"I know a man who can remove permanent tattoos. He lives here," Snape replied.

Harry blanched. "Is it going to hurt much?"

Severus' hand went to his left arm. "I'm not sure. He couldn't help me."

Harry felt guilty then for causing so much trouble for the man. He had heard everything that morning, the whole story about Snape, Lily, Tom Riddle and the Prophecy. It was part of the reason why he was acting out like a four-year-old. He needed to know that after everything he had learned there were still a few things about his life he could control.

The tattoo was on his right shoulder and it was a fire breathing dragon with artistically placed writing around it reading, Right to Die.

He had seen it in their promotional book and decided it fit the bill quite nicely, but it had been stupid, really, a childish need that had caused more pain for everyone involved. Still, he only partially regretted it. The tattoo did look pretty awesome.

After all the strangeness he had seen that day Harry realized something that made the Prophecy and his future seem a little less inevitable. If a blow-fish could drive a car through London, if a muggle detective could enlist the help of a death eater, and if friends could agree to disagree, then perhaps the future wasn't so set in stone. Maybe, one day, he would find out just how in the hell that couple had made the box disappear. Maybe, he would break away from the path that had been forced upon him.

Anything was possible, Harry decided at that moment. He might even live to see the end of the war.