Severus Snape sat back on the ghostly representation of his settee, took a sip of his favourite tea – camomile and mint, with a dash of firewhiskey – and relaxed with a sigh. The afterlife had given him plenty of opportunity to unwind from the stress his life had been. He had ample time to research and brew, and somehow he’d gotten hooked on watching a soap opera. It was just so entertaining!

Checking the clock over the mantelpiece – although the way the afterlife worked, he wouldn’t miss his show even if he went off to brew another potion for the next three days – he casually waved his hand, and the old-fashioned television set popped on with a click and a hiss of static. Then the image settled, and projected itself into the air until it was all but in 3D.

Severus gently placed his cup on the nearby table, and then rubbed his hands together. If he remembered the last episode correctly – and let’s face it, of course he did, his memory was perfect – then the students had been celebrating their graduation from university. They were the first batch of students to do so, as the university was very new, and had only been open for four years. It had been a very rowdy party.

“And now,” the television blared. “Presenting the next episode of . . . Boy Who Lived; Saviour of the Wizarding World!”

The theme song began to play, some unbelievably cheesy pop tune that seemed to be trying to recreate phoenix song. Thankfully, it didn’t last long, the roar of a male lion in his prime signalling the end of it.

Severus leaned forward with interest, as the screen flashed black for a second, then opened up to show someone’s bedroom.

Harry Potter stretched sleepily and sighed happily. He’d done it. He’d managed to graduate with honours from the newly established Hogwarts University. The world was his oyster now, and he could get any job he darn well wanted!

Rolling over, he wrapped an arm around the waist of the girl beside him in the bed, and buried his face into the luxurious, long hair, inhaling deeply. She stirred, and pressed back against him, making little crooning noises in her throat.

“Morning, gorgeous,” said Harry, his voice deep and rough with sleep.

“Morning,” she replied, throatily.

They both froze.

“Harry!”

“Hermione?!”

Severus sat back, shocked. Well, he hadn’t seen that coming! Potter must have been really plastered to not notice that his bed partner didn’t have Miss Weasley’s straight hair.

The shock soon turned to glee, however. How was Harry going to explain this to his paramour? And how was the youngest Mr Weasley going to react when he found out about Miss Granger’s perfidy? The Weasleys didn’t have all that red hair for nothing!

And to think, he’d never once suspected there were any feelings of that kind between those two. He’d thought the brainy type put Potter off.

Severus took another sip of his tea and conjured a plate of digestive biscuits as he watched Potter scramble for his clothing, and race out of the door.

It was just Harry’s luck that the first people he ran into were the Weasley twins.

“Harry, old boy,” said Fred – or maybe it was George – putting an arm around his shoulders. “Just the man we wanted to see.”

“We need to beg a loan from you,” George – or maybe it was Fred – continued, also wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“We, uh, sort of bet on the Ukrainian Trolls to win the national Gobstones match,” the first twin explained.

“We really should have put our money on the Norwegian Goblins instead,” the second twin finished, shaking his head sadly.

Severus’ jaw dropped. The Weasley twins were broke? What had they done, bet all their joke shop profits? And why bet on the Ukrainian Trolls, of all teams? Everybody knew, even in the afterlife, that the Norwegian Goblins would never give up their championship trophy – whether they actually won it or not. And the prize money was attached to the trophy – literally.

A smirk twisted his lips. He’d always known the Weasley twins – heck, the whole family, really – were too rash to succeed for long. They should have just stuck to the joke shop and not tried to make a quick profit. Especially not with Potter’s profit.

He wondered who the twins had made the bet with. Surely not the goblins? Were even the Weasley twins that stupid? Betting with the goblins against the goblins only seemed like a good idea if you enjoyed being tortured.

Shaking his head, Severus watched as Potter made his excuses to the twins and hurried off, and the scene faded to show somewhere on the outskirts of town.

The young man stood on the cliff overlooking the town, duffel bag at his feet. It had been years since he’d last been here, years since he’d seen his family . . . years since he’d last known who he was. No-one could come up with a reasonable explanation as to how he’d ended up three thousand miles away and with no memory after the final battle at Hogwarts. The best guess was that he’d been injured, and had then tried to stop a Death Eater from escaping and been caught up in their portkey.

Still, he was home now.

Severus’ eyes widened. Percy?! Percy Weasley had finally returned? He’d been presumed to have been with the other unfortunate unidentifiable victims who’d been caught in raging Fiendfyre. The best anyone could do was try and count how many people had died, then count the survivors and see who was missing. Apparently some of the bodies had been counted too many times – no great surprise really, as they hadn’t been any better than large puddles of semi-solid muck.

But goodness, what had happened to Percy’s hair? It was long, longer than Severus had ever seen it – reaching down to the middle of his back – but the biggest surprise was the colour of it.

It was jet black!

Had he dyed it? Severus mused, absently dunking a digestive into his tea and then nibbling on it. Or had the trauma naturally turned it? Although usually hair went white from stress, not black. Or maybe some magical curse to show how Percy felt? Severus snorted at himself. He sincerely doubted that Percy Weasley’s hair had turned into what amounted to a muggle mood-ring!

He would just have to wait and see.

Harry burst into the house he shared with the Weasley boys. Bill was sitting on the settee.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here. I slept with Hermione!” Harry blurted out breathlessly to the back of Bill’s head.

“You did WHAT?!” The redhead shot to their feet and turned around, revealing Ginny Weasley.

Harry blushed, paled, and stammered in horror. “I-I-I . . . accident . . . didn’t mean too . . . drunk . . . graduation . . .”

Ginny conjured a huge frying pan, and hefted it over her head, threateningly. “I’ll get you for this, Harry Potter!”

Severus dropped his biscuit into his tea, then started to laugh as Potter ran for his life, Miss Weasley chasing after him, swinging the heavy cast-iron frying pan. If Potter was identifying people by their hair, he needed a new system. Either that or new glasses.

And how typical of Potter to blurt it out instantly. He thought that surely Potter would have kept it hidden for at least a little while before slipping up. Shaking his head, Severus got up to dump out the mush now in his cup and get a new one. Obviously, it had been the part of Voldemort that had almost been sorted into Slytherin – Potter was Gryffindor through and through, couldn’t keep a secret for any decent length of time to save his life.

Unless, of course, it was vital to his health for other people to know, then suddenly Potter never told anybody anything.

Blast it, where was that other packet of digestives he’d had? Growing ever more frustrated, Severus pawed through all his cabinets. He was missing his show, and he knew he’d had another packet or two just the day before . . .

Growling, Severus snatched up the nearest pack – which happened to be chocolate hobnobs – and sulkily went back to his show.

Harry slammed the door and leant his back against it, panting hard.

“Harry?” questioned Blaise. Then, “Oh.” as Ginny tore down the street outside, screaming wildly, her face as red as her hair.

“Sorry,” Harry gasped out.

“Please, as if I’m going to worry about a good-looking man flinging himself into my home,” Blaise purred.

“What?” Harry blinked. “You think I’m good-looking?” A faint blush painted his cheekbones.

“Of course I do,” Blaise said, somehow managing to end up standing very close to Harry. “You’re almost as good as Draco Malfoy.”

Harry’s indignant protest was silenced by Blaise kissing him.

Severus barely stopped a second biscuit from landing in his tea. What?! What on earth was Blaise Zabini playing at? Everyone knew he was straight as a board. Mind you, he had been betrothed to a cousin of Goyle’s, and that particular branch of the Goyle tree had been inbreeding with the Crabbes for centuries. It made the offspring produced all but Squibs, and they made Greg and Vincent look like geniuses. So perhaps it wasn’t too surprising that Blaise was taking his fun where he could get it.

Potter’s face was priceless. His eyes were wide and panicked, and he was making strange, muffled noises, obviously trying to push Blaise away but not wanting to touch him in case Blaise took it as encouragement.

Severus almost rolled off the settee, he was laughing so hard.

Oh, he’d thought it the height of arrogance when he’d first discovered the afterlife received this programme, but oh, this moment right there made it all worthwhile!

Wondering if Lily and James were currently watching this, Severus howled with laughter again.

After finally escaping Blaise – and with Ginny nowhere in sight – Harry finally returned home. Inside, he found a crowd gathered around a strange couple. At first, he thought the woman’s long red hair was Ginny, but then she turned around.

“Oh, Harry, my baby!” she wailed, and flung herself at him.

Harry made a noise somewhere along the line of “Guerk!”

“Don’t you recognise us, son?” the man standing behind the woman asked. Harry slowly shook his head, a feeling of dread growing in his gut.

“We’re your parents!” the woman exclaimed, joyfully and tearfully. “Lily and James!”

Harry fainted.

Severus frowned. Hadn’t he just avoided Lily and James yesterday? How could they be alive? There was always the possibility that the people he was watching were imposters, he supposed. Maybe – at a stretch – the Potters had been allowed to return to life and their beloved son (although weren’t there some kind of cosmic laws against that?), but surely if they had, the news would have been spread around the afterlife like wildfire.

Certainly Black wouldn’t have been able to resist taunting him with the news, even if nobody else felt like telling him.

Scowling as if the Gryffindors were right in front of him, disrupting his classes, Severus kept his eyes on the figures as Harry was almost smothered in a sea of red hair. There was something . . . off about this whole thing. He didn’t like it when things weren’t as they were supposed to be.

However . . . if that was the Potters he was watching, how had they done it? What had they done to be allowed back to the other side? And why hadn’t Black and Lupin gone with them?

Or – and this thought made him gnash his teeth together in frustration – maybe it was just another example of the whole world revolving around the sodding Boy-Who-Lived.

Literally, it seemed.

There was a lot of commotion – hugging, yelling, questioning. By the time anyone noticed Neville, it was clear he’d been trying to get their attention for a while.

“Thank you,” he said, when everyone was finally looking at him. “I’ve been trying to tell you – the Three Broomsticks is on fire!”

Utter and instant pandemonium!

Apparating almost in a crowd, it was a miracle no-one got splinched. The pub was indeed on fire, burning merrily away.

“Is anybody still in there?” Harry yelled, coughing on the thick smoke. “Is everyone safe?”

“No,” cried Aberforth, looking worried. “Madam Rosmerta’s still inside!”