Begin the Begin

Disclaimer: Not mine. Woe. Property of JKR.

~1998~

The tiniest flutter from a butterfly's wings can cause a tsunami around the world.

That's what she'd said, and Ron had snorted. That's not bloody possible, he'd said, and she had frostily informed him that it was, according to Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory played a big role in the massive restrictions set upon Time Turner use, and Hermione told Ron so. He sobered, considered this, and eventually joined Hermione's cries of, "Harry, this is really too dangerous. Besides, how do you even know it'll work? He could hex you! Cast the Killing Curse!"

So Harry had found himself circling with the two of them about It for weeks, even months while they searched for, and destroyed, the Horcruxes save for one. The locket. They had never been able to locate it. Ron remembered seeing a locket at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, but it wasn't there anymore. They'd looked and upturned the whole ruddy place before Harry remembered that Kreacher had horded some of the family heirlooms and Hermione had carefully and painstakingly inspected his dingy cupboard. Summoning Kreacher to the home to speak to him in person had been fruitless; the elf was more interested in waking up the portrait of Mrs. Black – "FILTH! MUDBLOOD! BLOOD TRAITORS! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, YOU ABOMINATIONS OF FLESH AND BLOOD!" – than answering any questions Harry had. After he'd sent the elf back to Hogwarts, Ron put on the kettle and the three of them crowded round the kitchen table. Three kettles and a plate of Mrs Weasley's ladyfingers later, they'd come to the consensus that Mundungus Fletcher must have nicked the locket; Mrs Weasley had caught him smuggling Black goods out of the house on more than one occasion two summers ago. As Mundungus had turned up dead near a rubbish bin on a side-street in Upper Darby the previous month with the Dark Mark hovering in the sky, it was clear they wouldn't be able to question him as to the locket's whereabouts. To put it bluntly, they were well buggered. The locket could be absolutely anywhere at this rate and they couldn't spend forever tracking it down, not when attacks on innocent people, both wizards and Muggles, grew more and more frequent. When Harry suggested they return to Hogwarts to use the library to see about more advanced Tracing Charms, Ron and Hermione agreed. It was, as Harry told them, their only hope. It was also, as he neglected to tell them, his opportunity to do It. The means to accomplish It certainly had to be there within Hogwarts walls; it would be up to Harry to figure out where the means were. He was quite sure he could do that.

When they arrived at Hogwarts, Professor – Headmistress, he'd had to correct himself – McGonagall met them in the entrance hall and immediately set them up in the vacant Gryffindor Tower. The Board of Governors hadn't reopened the school, but McGonagall and a few others loyal to Dumbledore had remained.

After a hot meal of shepard’s pie, pumpkin juice, and treacle tart had been taken in the eerily silent Great Hall, Hermione suggested they get to work in the library straightaway. Though Ron rolled his eyes, he agreed. "Common room's too empty," he said, corners of his mouth turning down. "Feels all dodgy."

Harry didn't say anything to that, but he did nod. It felt awfully unsettling in Gryffindor and the school in general. Gone were the familiar sounds of chattering students roaming the corridors, the -CRACKS- of charms and other spells being cast inside the classrooms, the cackling of Peeves as he played a prank on some unsuspecting student or staff member.

“Go on, then,” Harry said finally, cramming his hands in his pockets. “I'll meet you there in a bit, yeah?”

Hermione eyed him with suspicion, but surprisingly didn't question why he wasn't coming along. “All right, Ron. You take the Charms aisle and I'll start in the Restricted Section.” Slinging her rucksack over her shoulder, she fell into step beside Ron. Harry stayed at the table, taking a long pull of pumpkin juice while he watched his two friends leave the Great Hall. He couldn't help but to grin when he noticed Ron's hand settling on the small of Hermione's back and the way she leaned in a little closer than necessary to him as he opened the door. Were they ever going to wake up and smell the Earl Grey, Harry wondered? Regardless; it was time to set out for his destination: Snape's old office.

Everything was just as Harry had remembered from his 10 o'clock Saturday detentions: dingy, dimly lit room; desk piled high with scrolls, inkwells, quills, and various mortars and pestles; walls lined with shelves of slimy dead things suspended in different-coloured potions. Immediately he went to the shelf where Snape had once placed Dumbledore's Pensieve. As expected, it wasn't there, although Harry was disappointed just the same.

Think, Potter. Think.

Over the last few months, Harry had spent a great deal of time thinking about Severus Snape, thinking about both the man and how he would think. Somewhere along the way, in between Horcrux hunting and obsessively reading the Prince's copy of Advanced Potion-Making he'd removed from the Room of Requirement after Dumbledore's funeral, Harry thought It up, and he was going to do It here and now. This was the place; the means had to be around here somewhere.

The most obvious place to look was Snape's desk. Harry rifled through the desk drawers and contents on top. He'd even done a few Detecting Charms but came up empty-handed. Not to be discouraged, he moved on to trunks stacked neatly in the corner, then on to the wardrobe where Snape kept extra cauldrons and scales. Nothing. Frustrated, Harry ran a hand through his hair and turned round, pressing his back against the wardrobe while he stared bleary-eyed at the shelves and shelves of phials and beakers of potions and floating dead things. Maybe...

Container by container, Harry began to investigate each and every shelf in the office. Snape was orderly; the ingredients were arranged alphabetically. Snape was not, however, overly concerned with cleanliness. By the time he got to the D's --direwolf whiskers, doxy eggs, dragon eggs, dragon eye, dragon hide, dungbeetle antennae -- Harry was well covered with dust and cobwebs and still had nothing to show for it.

“Lacewing flies, leeches, lionfish,” he muttered as he lifted each container off the shelf, wrinkled his nose at the contents, and replaced it. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. “Lovage...maybe I ought to nick some of this, give Hermione a Befuddlement Draught so she lightens up a bit.” The idea of Hermione being Befuddled made him laugh and shake his head; she'd likely be able to identify the potion from a single whiff of the stuff. “Lobalug poison sac, lobalug spout, lycorea cleobaea,” Harry mumbled, tripping over the words. "What the sodding hell is that last one?" Leaning in, he squinted and tipped his head, studying the thing suspended in a murky yellow potion. It shifted when he tapped the glass with his finger and he grinned. “Tiger Butterfly! Why didn't he just label it that way?” Of course, Harry knew why Snape hadn't; it wasn't the creature's proper name and Snape would not be anything less than proper in the way he arranged his storage. Not everything was labelled as such, but had Snape been there to explain why this was so, Harry would have written it off as him simply being a pompous arse as usual. Rolling his eyes in a manner he'd learnt from Hermione, Harry curled his fingers around the smooth contour of the beaker and lifted. Only, there was no lifting. The beaker stayed fast to the shelf and Harry frowned. What in the world...? He tried turning it in the opposite direction, but it didn't budge a centimetre. Curious, Harry ran his hands over the beaker, feeling for anything unusual. Still, the beaker didn't budge. However, when one of Harry's knuckles accidentally jostled the stopper, it did budge.

Perhaps that is an incorrect statement.

The shelf budged. Not much, but enough to be noticeable. “Huh?” Holding his breath, Harry plucked the stopper out of the beaker and then gasped. The shelf split in half and swung open, leaving a gaping space in the centre. The space was not unoccupied for long, however. The stone wall behind where the shelf had just been whole seemed to dissolve, opening up to display a compartment.

Heart thudding excitedly in his chest, Harry reached his hands in and pulled them back out full of small crystal phials, each phial filled with a curious silvery-white substance. Memory.

He'd known that Snape would have done something like this. Harry had known it, and he felt incredibly giddy seeing - and feeling the proof of it in his hands - that he had been right. Snape had only put a few memories in the Pensieve that time during Occlumency lessons, but Harry suspected that Snape had more than a few memories he would want to get out of his head permanently, not just the two or three he'd placed in Dumbledore's Pensieve to protect himself from Harry during their lessons. Hopefully one of them would include Regulus Black. If not, then Harry had spent all this time searching for Snape's memories for nothing.

It only took a few attempts at a password to be admitted into Dumbledore's – No, McGonagall's –office and he bounded up the spiral staircase eagerly, though he did make a brief mental note to tell Professor McGonagall that lemon sherbert was far too easy a password. Taking pains to avoid looking at the portrait of Dumbledore, who was leaning against his frame, snoring, half-moon glasses barely hanging on to the tip of his nose, Harry found the Pensieve and began unstoppering the crystal phials. Soon enough all the phials had been emptied into the stone basin, its contents ebbing and swirling as Harry gazed into the basin's depths.

Before he immersed himself in the Pensieve, he was going to have to make sure an actual memory of Regulus Black was there, or else the effort of all this would be pointless. Using the tip of his wand to prod at the shimmery stuff, Harry then stuck his face in the basin, just above the silvery substance, focussing his energy on staying rooted in the Headmistress's office, grounding himself there while memory after memory flashed before his eyes.

Outside by the lake, Snape pointing his wand at James. A light flared and the side of James' face was slashed, blood spurting all over his robes. James whirled about on his heel and waved his wand, sending Snape upside-down in the air, robes falling about his stomach and chest.... A school-aged Snape and a tall, forbidding-looking woman purchasing schoolbooks at Flourish and Blott's.... A ring of hooded men and women, Voldemort and a dark-haired, wiry young man in the centre, his face obscured by his hair. He holds his arm out, and then Voldemort touches the tip of his wand to the man's forearm, twisted skull and serpent burning into his skin.... King's Cross, full of boys and girls milling about what had to be Platform 9 ^3/4, trolleys and trunks everywhere. A small boy who could only be Snape stood alone, watching a group of five boys with a sour expression. Four of the boys were crowded around a shorter boy, one who looked incredibly similar to the raven-haired boy with the confident smile in the group.... The Hog's Head sign swinging overhead as Snape pushed open the door, moving to the back of the room where a man with dark eyes and an urgent air met him, shaking his hand.... A shabby room with dilapidated shutters, sunlight streaming through the cracks. Snape stretched out on the bed, writing on a scroll of parchment. The door opened and his eyes flickered to the doorway. “Severus,” breathed the man in the doorway. “Regulus,” Snape replied, lip curling as he rolled the parchment up....

Harry felt a surge of excitement; there was Regulus Black! Now was the time to do It. Steeling his nerves, hoping like hell he’ll be able to pull this off, Harry gripped his hands on the edge of the basin and dipped his head forward, the tip of his nose touching the silvery haze, and then his body lurched forward, hurtling through the now-familiar cold icy blackness of the basin. Screwing his eyes shut, Harry recited the ingredients to the first potion that came to mind – Polyjuice – to keep his mind off of the sickening reeling of his body as it was sucked further and further down a seeming whirlpool.

~1980~

And all of a sudden, Harry found himself standing in the corner of the shabby room, the last thing he’d seen in a strand of unwanted memories whirling in the mist-like essence at the top of the Pensieve. Nerves standing on edge, Harry looked around. There Snape was, a little older than Harry was now, reclining on the bed, his quill dancing over a scroll of parchment. He was alone, and Harry knew he had to test It out here, now.

“Severus,” he whispered.

Snape’s hand froze mid-downstroke, the nub of his quill hovering over the parchment. His dark eyes darted around the room, settling on the space where Harry stood.

“Reveal yourself,” Snape said, exchanging the quill in his hand for his wand.

Harry had to bite down hard on his lower lip to keep from laughing ecstatically and revealing himself. It worked! It worked! Hermione and Ron had thought it would be too dangerous and had discouraged him, but if they could see this now, Harry was sure they would relent. He’d done it. Harry had figured out how to enter memories and go beyond simply observing people in the memories; he’d managed to communicate with someone in their own memory! Snape couldn’t see him, but he could hear him, and Harry could use Snape to alter the past and convince Regulus Black to change the location where he would hide Salazar Slytherin’s locket.

The door opened and Snape’s eyes flickered to the doorway, though his wand remained trained in Harry’s direction.

“Severus,” breathed the man in the doorway.

“Regulus,” Snape replied, lip curling as he rolled the parchment up with one hand, closing the door behind his visitor with a flick of his wand hand. “I have been waiting.”

The man -- Regulus -- reached an aristocratic hand to his forehead to push back a shock of dark hair that had fallen casually in his eyes, and Harry’s heart hurt. Sirius had looked like that, all hooded-eyed and elegant, in the first memory of Snape’s that Harry had seen years ago. Regulus, while not quite as tall as his brother had been, was just as handsome. In fact, Regulus was a near replica of his brother with only a few slight differences. His eye weren’t as dark, nor was his nose as long, and his lips were ever so fuller than Sirius’s. Other than those few variations, Harry could very well have been looking on the teenaged version of his late godfather.

Regulus ducked his chin, but his eyes never left Snape’s. “I was delayed.”

“Thank you, Regulus,” Snape said in a silky voice. “I had not deduced that for myself.”

Harry rolled his eyes and crammed his hands in his pockets, while Regulus’s cheeks coloured. “I would have come sooner had I not been waylaid, you know this, Sev--”

Regulus stopped speaking abruptly because Snape waved his wand, sending him flying hard and fast through the air, so hard and fast that his back slammed against the wall and bits of wood that chipped off from the impact rained down on Regulus as he slumped on the bed.

“You will come,” Snape said, wand tip at the base of Regulus’s throat. “When I say.”

Harry couldn’t remember pulling his hands out of his pockets, but he must have because he suddenly became aware of the fist he’d pressed against his mouth. Regulus wasn’t even trying to fight back! Sirius surely would have.

“When you say,” Regulus said through gritted teeth, and then he laughed. Harry watched, transfixed, as the tip of Snape’s wand dug into Regulus’s throat, at the way it jiggled as sound and breath moved through it.

Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Harry struggled with himself. Should he interrupt now and say what he needed to say to Snape? Or should he wait and see how things would play out?

It was while Harry was having a battle of wits with himself that clothing was hexed off. Harry blinked, not believing what he was seeing until he heard the tell-tale sound of buttons clattering on the floor. No, there was no mistaking that Snape was now using his wand to do things to Regulus Black that Harry felt very strongly ought to be made illegal, at least illegal by the hands of Severus Snape.

Mouth gaping open, Harry watched as the wand worked its way along the length of Regulus’s body, tip sliding down the centre of the chest and out to one nipple and then the other, lightly circling then, the tiniest amount of pressure applied eliciting a long, luxurious gasp from Regulus. The sound did something to Harry; it raced right down his spine and straight into his cock, and he felt awful about it. Here he was in Snape’s room, wherever that bloody well was, watching Snape in an intimate situation, which is a mental image he didn’t ever have a need for, though now he’ll also have to contend with the real thing – and right in front of him! Shit, but he’d never thought Snape to be the sort to like blokes – or anything at all, for that matter! As far as Harry had always been concerned, Snape was an asexual ass. The sight before him more than refuted that particular concern however, in more ways than one. Actually, Harry thought, tilting his head to get a better angle for a gander at that thing, he’s quite fit. Then: What the ruddy hell am I thinking?

He was too far away to hear the exact incantation, but Harry didn’t miss the pale orange light streaming from Snape’s wand toward Regulus’s cock. If Harry bent his knees just so, he could look through Snape’s spread thighs to see the light spinning and moving up and down over Regulus’s cock. And then, in a flash, the light dissipated, and Harry crept to the foot of the bed to get a better look at what had just happened.

What immediately came into view made Harry reel back several feet, hand crammed in mouth to avoid making a sound and being detected once more. Wrapped around the length of Regulus’s erect cock was twine, wound round and round the shaft, all the way down to the balls. Squinting, Harry leaned forward and grimaced. The twine didn’t just encompass Regulus’s cock; it bound his balls as well.

Harry’s cock twitched in sympathy, and he wanted to cry out, to order Snape to stop full stop, but he said nothing. While he never entirely believed Hermione’s warnings about Chaos Theory and altering the past and future, Harry was apprehensive all the same at interrupting something that had been meant to happen, something that had already happened. Crap. He just wished he’d glimpsed this memory of Snape’s at this part when he’d first stuck his face in the Penseive; he sure as hell wouldn’t have chosen to try this memory otherwise. It didn’t help to close his eyes; he could still hear them, still hear Regulus’s pants and Snape’s murmurs. It didn’t help, so Harry kept his eyes opened and watched them.

Snape leant over Regulus, reaching under the pillow to produce a small phial of a clear liquid. He placed a dollop of the stuff on one of Regulus’s palms. “Prepare yourself,” he murmured, slathering his cock. Regulus whimpered as he propped himself up to follow Snape’s instructions; the movement must have been a painful strain on his cock, but he drew his knees up, far enough so that even Harry got a good look at his pucker. Harry’s mouth fell open and his balls tingled, and he didn’t know how he managed to hold in a moan when Regulus pushed two fingers inside himself, but he was damned proud of himself nonetheless.

“Enough.” Regulus withdrew his fingers and Snape quickly pushed inside; Harry could see how red Regulus’s cock was beginning to get as it pressed against the twine. His own eyes watered in sympathy, but then he became transfixed with the way the muscles in Snape’s back rippled with each thrust, and fuck but his own cock was getting damned hard.

“Severus,” Regulus panted, a hand reaching up to curl around Snape’s neck, and Harry blinked when he saw the way Snape was looking back at him. It was like Snape had feelings for Regulus. It was like he was in love with him.

“I know,” Snape breathed, and then began thrusting with abandon. The sounds of flesh slapping against flesh filled up the small room, and Harry could almost smell the sex in the air. It was probably fucking fantastic, and he regretted that he couldn’t actually smell it.

Harry knew it was going to happen before it actually did; the muscles in Snape’s back froze, then undulated, and he pounded into Regulus twice before throwing his head back and gasping.

Inhaling deeply, Snape began to untwist the twine from Regulus’s cock. His cock twitched and all it took was one quick jerk of Snape’s fist over him to get him to come; Regulus spilled against Snape’s belly and all over his hand.

Once a Cleaning Charm was performed, Snape pulled out and the two lay down on the bed, spooning.

Harry watched them for a time until Regulus’s breathing shallowed, all the while thinking he himself needed to come. He could get himself off right here and now; it wouldn’t be like either of them would see him do it. But no, he couldn’t think about that. He was here for a reason.

“Snape,” Harry whispered after a long silence had fallen in the room, staring at the still forms on the bed. Snape stirred and lifted his head up, and he would have met Harry’s eyes had he been able to see him. Swallowing a moan, Harry pressed a hand against his groin, trying to get himself under control.

“Snape,” Harry said again, hand clenching into a fist, pushing it hard against his cock. “Nnnnghhh.”

Remember. Remember why I’m here.

Snape swung his legs round, feet setting on the rickety floorboards. His hand reached for his discarded wand while Harry moved away from the wall. “It’s no use, so put it away.” The fingers on the hilt of the wand tightened. “You can hear me, but you can’t see me.”

“What ghost or devil are you and what business of mine is yours?” Snape asked with a sneer.

Harry ignored that and played the only card he figured Snape would take. “Dumbledore sent me. I’m inside a Pensieve. This is a memory.”

Snape exhaled slowly, the fingers around the leather hilt relaxing visibly.

“Who are you, Dumbledore’s Man? What does the Headmaster want with me?”

“Who I am isn’t important,” Harry said hurriedly, finding that the more he talked, the less he was aware of the aching need in his cock. “What is important is that man in the bed and what he’s going to do.”

“And what, pray tell, is Black going to do?” Snape asked, the slight tinge of uncertainty in his voice betraying the cool, unaffected and disinterested expression on his face.
“He wasn’t lying about being restless. He’s going to try to get out. Of it.”

“Lies.”

Springs in the mattress groaned in protest as Regulus shifted in his sleep, and both Harry and Snape paused to look upon his resting form.

“You know it’s not a lie,” Harry said, and Snape’s shoulders visibly tensed.

“Continue.”

Harry paused, completely consumed with a sudden panic so sharp and true that it was nearly overwhelming. While he’d had It planned for some time, in all honesty he hadn’t been sure it would work. Now that he was here in Snape’s memory and the power to change the location of Slytherin’s locket was within his grasp, he was unsure of how to go about doing so. How much could he tell Snape? How much should he tell Snape? The Snape before him now was not yet a Hogwarts professor, nor was he a member of the Order of the Phoenix. At least, Harry is certain of the former, according to Professor -- Headmistress -- McGonagall’s recollection of how and when Snape came to be Potions Master at Hogwarts. Professor Snape had never mentioned Horcruxes to Professor Dumbledore, as far as Harry knew, so perhaps it might not be wise to mention the locket was a Horcrux.

Tell him what he needs to know to prompt him to do what you ask, but tell him no more than that, said a voice that sounded suspiciously like Hermione’s in his head.

“He is going to take a locket that doesn’t belong to him and place it in a cupboard in his family’s home,” Harry said finally, feeling slightly nauseous from the panic that had washed over him and left just as quickly.

Snape smiled briefly, a flash of yellow teeth and pale-pink gums, and steepled his fingers together. “The Headmaster has sent you through a Pensieve memory and given you the means to communicate with those in the memory so he can prevent petty theft? How disappointing and uninteresting.”

“You don’t think that at all,” Harry said flatly, and he felt a glimmer of satisfaction when Snape’s eyes narrowed. He’d gotten to Snape. Snape was interested.

“Perhaps.”

Harry smirked, though he was a bit disappointed that Snape couldn’t actually see it or him. “What Dumbledore wants is for Regulus to put the locket somewhere else.”

“And I gather,” Snape sneered, “that I am to inform him of this matter.”

“Yeah. But you can’t come right out and tell him about the locket. You have to be vague.”

“So Black will take a locket that is not his and hide it in a cupboard in his family home, I am to tell him he must not hide it in the cupboard, and yet I cannot tell him plainly of the Headmaster’s wishes.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Certainly. I’ll attend to this, and then see to locating Crumple-Horned Snorkacks for the Headmaster’s amusement.”

Harry’s patience wore out. “Just sodding do it!”

“Why should I?”

“Because he’s going to hire you at Hogwarts, you stupid arse.”

Snape exhaled slowly. “Defence Against Dark Arts?”

Beside him, Regulus stirred, lifting his head groggily off the pillow. “Severus?”

Snape’s torso twisted and he stared down at him. “Regulus.”

Harry took this as his cue to leave. Rooting his feet in the floor, he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, focusing on returning to Snape’s office. As he felt himself begin to rise in the air, he remembered that he hadn’t told Snape where Regulus ought to put the locket. “Tell him he ought to give his mother a trinket sometime!” And then there was blackness, and Harry was being pulled up in near slow motion, a sensation that made his head spin. Suddenly he found himself on his feet in the brightness of McGonagall’s office. The Pensieve shimmered and sparkled in the cabinet before him, and he knew he had to find Ron and Hermione right away.

1998

Bursting into the library, Harry raced up and down the aisles until he found Ron and Hermione sitting in the middle of the floor by the Restricted Section, stacks upon stacks of books around them.

“C’mon,” he panted.

“There you are, Harry!” Hermione exclaimed, looking up from her book.

“Pull up a rug. We’ve some light reading for you, mate,” Ron said with a slight, albeit tired, grin, gesturing to the stacks surrounding Hermione.

“Grimmauld Place,” he gasped, leaning against the shelf for support. A low groan sounded from a book under his elbow and he yelped, straightening.

“What about it?” Ron asked around a snicker.

“The locket, Slytherin’s locket. It’s there.”

Ron sobered and gave him an odd look. “No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is,” Harry protested. “I know we looked and it wasn’t there, but we weren’t looking in the right place. It’s there.”

“Are you feeling all right, Harry?” Hermione asked gently, looking up at him with concern.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t you remember? We found that months ago…in the portrait of Sirius’ mum?”

Harry blinked. “What?”

Ron snorted. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember, mate. The old hag screamed and wailed for days ‘til we got it off her – screamed so bloody loud the chandelier shattered?”

Harry felt faint. “Right,” he said slowly, staring at a stack of books. Until he figured out what was going on, he’d better act like everything was all right. The last thing he needed right now was a load of questions from Hermione and Ron. “Find anything on a Tracing Charm?”

“Not much,” Hermione said crossly, slamming the book she’d been looking at shut.

“I don’t see why he can’t just tell us which book the ruddy spell’s in. ‘The answer you seek lies within the Restricted Section.’ Oh, big bloody help, Dumbledore,” Ron said darkly.

“McGonagall,” Harry corrected automatically.

Ron frowned. “No, Dumbledore. Why’d you-- McGonagall’s dead, remember?”

Harry gaped. “What?”

“Honestly, Harry,” Hermione said, reaching up to squeeze his hand. “She died when Draco Malfoy let those Death Eaters into school last spring, remember? That’s why the Board of Governors closed down the school.”

“I don’t understand,” Harry said, and slumped to the floor beside her.

“Told you too much treacle tart’d go to your brain,” Ron said, tossing him a book. “C’mon. We aren’t gonna find Hufflepuff’s cup just sitting here blathering on.”

The book landed in Harry’s lap and he pushed it to the floor, climbing to a stand. “I think I left something near Snape’s old office. I’ll be back soon, okay?” he said, the lie rolling easily off his tongue. Air. He needed some fresh air.

“Who the sodding hell is Snape?” Ron asked, brow furrowing.

“Severus Septimius Snape, son of Eileen Prince and Muggle Tobias Snape. Born January 9, 1959 in Ilfracombe. Attended Hogwarts from 1971 to 1978. Excelled in Potions and Defence Against Dark Arts. Earned the highest marks in both subjects all seven years at Hogwarts, a school record. Known Death Eater. Found dead in a gutter behind the Hog’s Head Pub, Hogsmeade, with Regulus Black in the fall of 1980. Killing Curse. Dark Mark hanging in the sky.”

Ron goggled at her, and then shook his head. “Hermione,” he said solemnly, “you read too much.”

Harry promptly threw up on his trainers.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After begging Ron and Hermione off, Harry stopped in the loo to brush his teeth, and then went to Dumbledore’s office. The password was still lemon sherbert, and his feet barely touched the steps as he rushed up the staircase. There the Pensieve sat, just as it had when he'd left it. Sucking in a deep breath, he lowered his face to the basin, searching for the particular memory from which he had just come. Centring his thoughts and energy on Regulus and Snape, he skimmed and skimmed and skimmed.

There wasn’t anything to skim through. There were no memories belonging to Severus Snape in the Pensieve.

“Shite,” Harry moaned, sinking slowly to the ground. Of course there wouldn't be any memories belonging to Snape in that Pensieve, not if what Hermione'd said were true. If Snape had died along with Regulus Black, he obviously wouldn't have had the opportunity to extract some of his memories and stopper them up later. How was Harry going to fix this?

Pressing his back against the cabinet, Harry banged his head off the hard wood, muttering to himself. “Think. Think. Think.”

And then, that was It. An idea sparked and he fanned it until it became a bright flickering flame of hope.

“Of course,” he breathed, and then withdrew his wand. As he had seen Dumbledore do before, Harry raised the tip of his wand to his head and withdrew the memory of being in Snape's memory, watching as a silvery strand stretched from his temple to the wand. A quick flick of the wrist placed the memory inside the stone basin, and Harry didn't hesitate to launch himself into its depths.

~1980~

There Snape and Regulus were, draped all over the mattress, and there was his other self, standing with his back pressed against the wall, a noticeable tent in his trousers.

“Snape,” his earlier self whispered, staring at the still forms on the bed. Snape stirred and lifted his head up, and he would have met earlier Harry’s eyes had he been able to see him, Harry noticed. He watched as his earlier self swallowed a moan and pressed a hand against his groin.

“Snape,” Harry's earlier self said again, hand clenching into a fist, pushing it hard against his cock. “Nnnnghhh.”

Harry's cock twitched at the sight and the sounds he'd made, and he felt vaguely dirty and really sodding confused as to why he'd get hard at the sight of his earlier self getting hard.

Snape swung his legs round, feet setting on the rickety floorboards. His hand reached for his discarded wand while his earlier self moved away from the wall. “It’s no use, so put it away.” The fingers on the hilt of the wand tightened. “You can hear me, but you can’t see me.”

“What ghost or devil are you and what business of mine is yours?” Snape asked with a sneer.

Harry watched as his earlier self licked his lips and prepared to answer. That's when Harry jumped in. “Don't,” he said, and his earlier self jumped.

“What're you-- Am I here again?”

“Yeah. I don't think you can see me either, but you've got to--”

“While this is incredibly touching,” Snape interjected, venom dripping from every syllable, “I do not appreciate non-corporeal reunions in my presence. Be gone.”

His earlier self goggled and Harry glared at both himself and Snape, though it didn't do a bit of good as neither could see him.

“Go back,” Harry told himself. “It's no good.”

He watched himself sigh and worry his lower lip. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Harry said slowly. Would it be worth it to not tell Snape about this, to not have Snape plant the seed in Regulus's mind? Dumbledore is alive, but McGonagall died in his place. Snape died as well. Harry couldn't have their blood on his hands. “Go back.”

His earlier self looked momentarily puzzled, but he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling and then, just like that, he was gone. Harry waited a moment and then followed suit.

~1998~

Harry’s feet had no sooner hit the floor in the Headmaster’s -- Headmistress’s -- office and then into the basin his head went again. Summoning all his energy and focus, he began to skim the basin, looking for signs of Snape’s memories. “C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered to himself, then breathed a huge sigh of relief when now-familiar images – a schoolboy Snape purchasing textbooks with whom could only be his mother… King’s Cross, full of students milling about Platform 9^3/4… The shabby room from which he’d just came… James pointing his wand at Snape beside the lake… The Hog’s Head sign swinging in the wind as Snape walks underneath it, pushing the door to the pub open. Inside, toward the back of the room, Regulus waits for him, and Snape advances… – began to surface.

That’s it. That’s the one that’ll do it. I hope.

Although he’d hoped that the third time into the Pensieve for the day would be the charm, that wasn’t the case. Harry was overcome by nausea again as he fell down the black depths of the stone basin.

~1980~

Just as quickly as he had been sucked down into the dark whirlpool of the Pensieve, he was spit out, feet hitting the ground. Heels grinding atop autumn-kissed leaves, Harry hurried along the dirt road leading up to the Hog’s Head Pub. Just ahead was Snape. Ducking his chin, Harry quickened his pace and slipped inside the establishment after Snape, though he did jump when the door seemingly closed right through him.

Shaking his hands and arms as though shaking out any jitters, Harry then squared his shoulders and began weaving through the crowd behind Snape. This time around, Harry decided, he wasn’t going to hold out. He would tell Snape everything, Snape would believe him, and Regulus would be told to move the locket from the cupboard. There was no way Snape wouldn’t believe him now. If Harry’s guess was right, by this time Snape would have been hired on as the Potions Master at Hogwarts, so he should be loyal to Dumbledore.

Loyal? He killed Dumbledore, a voice in his head piped up.

But Dumbledore wanted him to do it, to kill him so Voldemort would think Snape was still loyal. Dumbledore was weak and he knew it, said a second, and the first laughed.

Bollocks.

It isn’t bollocks! Dumbledore was weak – from the ring and from the locket. He was probably dying anyway, and he wanted Snape to do it.

Harry gritted his teeth and shut his eyes tightly, willing the voices to shut up. He had a job to do.

“Snape,” Harry called, side-stepping a round wizard and tripping over the laces of one trainer. “Hell.” Snape hadn’t heard him; rather, he kept walking toward the man with the dark eyes and an urgent air, all wrapped up in a long black cloak.. “Snape! OI!”

Heart beating a wild tattoo in his chest, Harry watched as Regulus offered his hand, watched as Snape shook it, watched as Snape pulled Regulus in by the hand and pressed their chests together, watched as Regulus whispered something in Snape’s ear.

“SNAPE!”

A wait-witch came out of a door leading from what had to be the kitchen, cutting Harry off until he realized that he could walk through people. This was a memory, after all.

No.

In the time it took for Harry to slip through a knot of rowdy witches and come out to the spot where he’d seen Snape and Regulus greeting one another, they had left. For a moment Harry felt like collapsing to the ground and beating his fists against the floorboards. How could he have let them slip through his fingers? Why hadn’t he just pushed his way through the crowd? Bloody hell, he probably could have just run right through them to get to Snape and Regulus. Where would they have gone? Hands clenching into fists, Harry pivoted from left to right, surveying the room. To the right was a set of stairs. To the extreme left was a door. To the near left was a fireplace. Would they have taken the Floo somewhere? Gone to the second floor? Left the pub altogether?

As almost as though she were right there beside him, Hermione’s voice abruptly rang in his head, her earlier words flooding his mind. “Severus Septimius Snape, son of Eileen Prince…found dead in a gutter behind the Hog’s Head Pub, Hogsmeade, with Regulus Black in the fall of 1980. Killing Curse. Dark Mark hanging in the sky…”

Of course.

Fists pumping at his sides, Harry propelled himself toward the door, leaping through it. When his feet hit the solid earth outside, his teeth chattered together from the force of the landing. And then he was off again, rounding one corner and then another of the pub until he found them standing to the side of a dirt road riddled with divots.

“—dare betray the Dark Lord!”

“Severus, listen,” Regulus said urgently. “His views are warped. He has not been truthful with—”

“He has been truthful, Regulus. Have you looked upon him with unseeing eyes? Have you listened to him with unhearing ears? Do you not remember all he has done for you and yours?” Snape asked, and Harry could see how the chord in his neck quivered.

“I have it,” Regulus said simply, and Harry couldn’t speak for the lump in his throat. “I remember and I have his locket, Severus. He will know truth when he discovers my truth.”

“Your truth.” Snape’s lip curled and Harry lurched forward, mouth and throat incredibly dry.

Say something! a voice in his head screamed, but all he could manage to get out was a low croaking sound.

Both men twitched at the noise, but neither one turned toward him.

“My truth.” Regulus lifted his chin to stare down at Snape, and he looked every bit as handsome and haughty as Harry imagined Sirius did at this age as well.

“Congratulations, Regulus. Your truth has set you free. Avada Kedavra!”

NO!

A flash of green light, the sickening thump of a lifeless body hitting the ground, and then it was all over. Regulus’s body rolled over the pock-marked road and bounced off of a rock before coming to rest in a nearby gutter.

Snape bowed his head briefly and Harry turned away, staring down at Regulus’s lifeless body with stinging eyes. His eyes, round and black like berries, were wide open, and his lips were parted slightly. Harry had seen them, seen Regulus and Snape shagging, seen the way Snape had looked at him, and in the end it hadn’t mattered at all. He had still killed him. For a second, utter disbelief consumed him, made his stomach twist on itself, made blood pound in his ears, and in the next it was a jumbled sort of anger.

“You cared about him,” Harry said in a low, quaking voice.

Snape’s chin lifted and his eyes narrowed. He’d certainly heard Harry.

One corner of his mouth twitched, but he said nothing. Instead, he raised his wand hand toward the sky and paused, as though he were waiting for some sort of signal as to how to continue.

“MORSMORDRE!”

Another green light, this one glittering, exploded from the tip of Snape’s wand and flew up over the Hog’s Head and into the sky. In a matter of moments, the light had carved the Dark Mark into the night sky, greenish smoke following the movement of the twisted skull and snake.

Blinded by rage, Harry charged at him, wanting to pummel Snape, wanting to make Snape understand that he was wrong, that killing Regulus wasn’t going to ensure he would stay in Voldemort’s good graces, that Regulus could have switched sides and Dumbledore would have helped him, wanted him to feel the pain that Regulus could no longer feel. The charging did no good; Harry ran right through him, gasping and wide-eyed as he came out the other side.

“YOU CARED ABOUT HIM!” Harry yelled at Snape’s back, chest heaving.

“I care for no one,” Snape whispered as he turned round toward Harry’s voice, wand raised. It wavered the tiniest of degrees, but Harry saw it all the same. “Invisibility Cloak? A charm, perhaps? Whomever you are, you are—”

“Gone,” Harry choked. “I’m gone.” And then he began to rise in the air, and everything became black around him as he became drawn to the top of the Pensieve and out.

~1998~

Landing on the floor in a heap, Harry didn’t bother to sit up. He leaned forward until he tipped over all the way, and then stretched out on the floor, pressing his cheek against the cold stones. Snape had been responsible for Regulus’s death all this time. Snape, whom Sirius had allowed, as part of the Order of the Phoenix, into his family home. Snape, whom he’d begun to imagine over the past few months that he understood. Snape, whom he’d begun to believe just might be loyal to Dumbledore after all.

Harry blinked, and then felt moisture on the cheek that wasn’t pushing against the stone. Tears. Tears of frustration.

“No,” he said fiercely, his voice echoing queerly in the empty room. “No.” Harry would not cry, no matter how disgusted he was with himself, with Snape, with everything. Screwing his eyes shut, he replayed what had just happened over and over again – losing sight of Regulus and Snape in Hog’s Head pub, following them outside, seeing them have a row, watching as Snape cast the Killing Curse, noticing the way Snape’s wand faltered when he’d said he didn’t—

That was it. His wand had trembled. Harry had seen it. Snape had cared for Regulus, despite what he’d said. He’d cared for him all along. But how could Harry fix things? How could he right what went wrong? Snape had feelings for Regulus, yet he had to end him to…do what? Save face with Voldemort? Keep up his act as the double agent? Something else? Whatever his reasons, Harry knew it couldn’t have been easy for Snape to do that.

Then It hit Harry. He could fix things. He could save things. Harry was good at that, at saving things and people.

Placing his hands palm-flat against the cool floor, Harry pushed himself up and got to his feet, swaying a little. The silvery substance in the Pensieve twinkled and twisted about itself, and Harry didn’t even bother this time to browse Snape’s memories. He knew exactly where he needed to go and dove right in.

~1972~

Feeling solid ground beneath his feet again, Harry turned around, a grim smile curving his mouth when he saw the familiar wrought-iron archway bearing the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. Overhead drifted smoke from the scarlet steam engine of the Hogwarts Express, and Harry zigged and zagged through the babbling crowd on the platform until he had found what he had been looking for: a small boy who could only be Snape standing alone, watching a group of five boys with a sour expression on his face. Four of the boys were crowded around a shorter boy, one who looked incredibly similar to the raven-haired boy with the confident smile standing in the centre of the group.

“So kiddo,” asked one of the boys, “you going to be bang-up Gryffindor like old Sirius here, eh?”

Harry’s eyes widened as he stared at the boy with the messy dark hair, glasses, and a smirk that could have been lifted from his own face. James. Dad.

Maybe some other time, he thought. For now, he had to worry about what it was he’d set out to do here for Snape and Regulus, as well as himself.

Swallowing against a lump in his throat, Harry turned and found Snape in the crowd, sticking to him as the students began to step off the platform onto the train. The smallest boy in that group had been Regulus, which Harry had gathered but had also been confirmed as an older Slytherin girl walking ahead of Snape and himself called out, “Sirius! Reg! Your mum said to owl when you get there!” to the pack of boys walking in front of them

“Ta, Cissy!” Regulus replied over his shoulder, giving Cissy a wave as she ducked into a car with a handsome, haughty-looking blond Slytherin. Harry’s stomach gave a lurch as he realised just whom the girl and her boyfriend were – Narcissa Black and Lucius Malfoy.

With Narcissa and Lucius out of the way, there was no one between Snape, the Marauders, and Regulus. Harry sped up a bit, walking directly behind Snape.

“Severus Snape,” Harry said in a low voice, and Snape jumped, his skinny, spindly arms and legs jerking about. Though the sight would have normally been something that would’ve sent him into a fit of laughter, he didn’t so much as smile at Snape’s surprise. “Don’t say anything; people’ll look. Just believe me when I tell you that I will make sure you…” What? I don’t know how to threaten someone! “…suffer…if you don’t do what I say. Nod if you understand, Severus.”

The boy’s shoulders tensed and pulled back, but eventually he did nod, and Harry’s spirit lifted the tiniest of bits. Maybe he’d be able to fix things after all.

“I know you see Sirius Black and his brother,” Harry continued as they followed his father and his friends through the train.

Again, Snape nodded.

“Good,” Harry murmured, watching as Regulus began to lag behind the group. “You’re going to tell his brother that he won’t be a Slytherin.”

“Why must I be the one to—”

“Because I said so, and if you don’t you’ll be sorry. Your mum will be sorry. Do you understand?”

Snape shook his head, though Harry noticed the way his brow wrinkled and his hands trembled. Then he nodded.

“Which is it – yes or no?” Harry asked impatiently.

Greasy hair jumping in his face, Snape nodded again, eyes darting around. After a short time, he gave up. Harry figured he must have worked out that he wasn’t going to be able to see who was speaking to him.

“You’ll bloody well kill him and his family otherwise.”

“I’ll bloody well kill him and his family,” Snape repeated.

“Good. Now do it.”

Snape stopped in the middle of the carriage and frowned, then both he and Harry looked up at the sound of a cat screeching as its basket dropped. Regulus.

Laughing, Sirius yelled, “Meet us in the back carriage, Reg,” and disappeared in the next car with James and the other two boys, who had to be Wormtail and Professor Lupin.

“Go on,” Harry whispered sharply, and Snape moved toward him, stooping down to right the cat basket.

“Thanks,” Regulus said when Snape handed the basket to him, all toothy grin and a hopeful glint in his eyes.

Snape opened his mouth to speak and then shut it just as quickly. Harry coughed pointedly. Face screwing up miserably, Snape leant in toward Regulus. “You’re not going to be a Slytherin,” he whispered.

Regulus’s grin widened. “My family’s all Slytherin, ‘cept for my brother Sirius, and our mum wants me to be Slytherin and not like him very much, so I think that’s what I’m gonna be. Slytherin!” He paused, staring up at Snape. “Are you Slytherin?”

Snape nodded and frowned, worrying his lower lip. Harry coughed again, though the cough sounded more like ‘your mum’ll be sorry’ than a regular old cough.

First Snape’s eyes widened, and then they narrowed practically into slits as he leant in further, his hooked nose almost bumping against Regulus’s.

“If you let the Sorting Hat put you in Slytherin, I’m going to kill you and your brother.”

Regulus’s grin faded. “Is this a joke?” he asked uncertainly. The cat inside the basket meowed.

“No,” Snape said, and his lips curled.

In an instant, Regulus began to tremble all over. He looked up at Snape with wide, black eyes, then turned on his heel and pushed open the door to the next carriage.

When Regulus disappeared from sight, Snape ducked his chin and barrelled into a nearby car. Harry watched him through the glass on the door for several long minutes, watched the tears trickle down his sallow cheeks, watched until he couldn’t bear it anymore.

With a heavy heart, Harry tipped his chin back and concentrated. Soon again he found himself being lifted up and away out of the memory.

~1998~

Harry fell to the floor with a thump, though he hardly felt the pain in his backside because there was a blinding burst of pictures, a bright and bold barrage, flash flash flashing in his head.

“Christ,” he groaned, clutching at his forehead. Rocking from side to side, he then dug his heels down into the floor to ground himself, and pushed up to a seated position. On a shelf near the Pensieve were the crystal phials, and Harry shot up, collecting them. It took more than a bit of concentration, but Harry was able to split the memories up – each memory turned a different colour of haze, making it easier to distinguish one memory from the next – and re-bottle them. The moment all the phials were properly stoppered again, Harry took off for Snape’s old office. He’d put the memories back where he found them and then he would 1) go find Hermione and Ron, 2) return to Number Twelve and arrange for a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, 3) try to work out these odd and unfamiliar, yet somehow strangely familiar all the same, pictures in his head, and 4) start searching for the whereabouts of Slytherin’s locket…again, but not necessarily in that order.

“All right, Harry?” called a voice from somewhere behind him, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Harry paused on the staircase and turned around, completely surprised to see the likes of Colin Creevey. Funny, McGonagall hadn’t mentioned that any of the students had came to Hogwarts despite the Board of Governors mandating that it remain closed.

“Busy,” he said, giving Colin an apologetic smile before turning round and running toward his destination again. He’d catch up with Colin later.

The door to Snape’s office was slightly ajar; the hinges creaked and groaned in protest when he pushed the door open. Closing the door as quietly as he could behind him, though he didn’t know for the life of him why he was bothering to be quiet in a near-deserted castle, Harry crossed to Snape’s desk and placed the phials on top; he’d have to remove the jar labelled Lycorea cleobaea from the shelf before he could put them away.

Well, bugger.

Harry leaned forward and squinted as he studied the labels on the shelf again. “Lacewing flies, leeches, lionfish, mandrake.” He paused, then inspected the labels again. “Lacewing flies, leeches, lionfish, lobalug poison sac, lobalug spout, lovage, mandrake. Where’s the Tiger Butterfly?”

He didn’t have time to think on an answer for his own question; the door swung open and, afraid it might be McGonagall and she would be cross with him for going through things that didn’t belong to him, he ducked underneath the desk.

“It was the lobalug spout, was it not?”

“Yes, and the poison sac, if you can spare it.”

Harry’s eyes rounded at the sound of the two voices. The second he didn’t recognise but the first he did. Snape. Praying that he wouldn’t make a sound to give himself away, Harry shifted underneath Snape’s desk and took up his wand.

“For you, Black, I’m afraid I can spare nothing.”

Black? Harry frowned; the only Blacks alive were Narcissa Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, and Tonks’s mum. Who was Snape talking to and what did they want with a lolabug spout and poison sac? Were Death Eaters concocting some sort of potion?

The second man chuckled. “Severus, please. Can we not leave the old Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry behind? We’re colleagues now.”

“That was not of my choosing, Regulus,” Snape said, and had Harry not been so shocked by whom Snape’s visitor was he would have snorted at the way Snape practically sniffed his response.

“Yes, I am aware of that fact, as you are ever so fond of reminding me of that very thing whenever the opportunity arises.”

“Just as cheeky as your dearly departed brother.” There was a rustling of fabric and then Harry was staring at the back of Snape’s calves; he was obviously extracting the potions ingredients that Regulus needed. This wasn’t possible. Was it? Though he’d told Snape at King’s Cross to say such things to Regulus, Harry hadn’t quite expected this.

“She’s still out there, isn’t she?” Regulus said quietly, the mirth gone from his voice.

“Likely, yes, though I cannot know for certain. I was exposed as a traitor to them, you will remember. With the Dark Lord defeated, they have no one to protect them or build them up. They must keep to the shadows and embrace the night to avoid being seen or heard from if they wish to remain free.”

Harry didn’t hear much of the rest of the conversation; he was too busy reeling from what they’d said. Voldemort defeated? Regulus Black a colleague of Snape’s? At Hogwarts?

The slamming of the door shut once more jerked Harry out of his reverie and he shook his head, trying to clear it. At that precise moment, mid-shake, a hand reached under the desk and hauled him out from beneath it by his collar.

Oh, bollocks.

Indeed, Snape’s voice sounded in his head, and Harry yelped, his head hitting the underside of the desk as he was pulled from under it.

Up went the mental walls as best he could manage them, and then he was eye-to-eye with Severus Snape.

“I had thought we were quite finished with Hide and Seek,” Severus -- no, Snape! -- said, and Harry stared hard at a spot on his shoulder, those images flashing in his mind again. Harry winced and tried to pull away, but Snape was too quick on the draw; there was a flash of light and then Harry was lying atop the now-cleared counter of Snape’s desk, each hand bound to each ankle with a Slytherin tie.

Thinking he was in quite a bit of trouble now, Harry stared at the ceiling, wracking his brain for any ideas as to how he could get out of this, how he could escape, how he could break free, how he could—

He felt something on his cock right then. Severus was touching him, cupping him through the fabric of his trousers. His cock answered immediately, still unsatisfied from earlier events, becoming so incredibly hard that he ached, pain pushing out from the head of his cock up and throughout every last bit of his body.

Harry heard a noise just then, a low, primal hungry noise, and he knew it came from him. The need was unbearable and, despite himself, his hips shifted and canted forward, and he tried to open up his mouth to tell Severus to—stop? Continue? Touch him this way or that way?—do something, but he couldn’t form words. He couldn’t form words, and an image flashed in his head that was very similar to what he was experiencing now. Had he, had they—but he would have remembered. Or was he remembering now?

Severus must have found a way in past his defences; he touched Harry, just like Harry had wanted, opening the fly of Harry’s trousers to undo the button and zip. In the next moment, Severus had draped himself over Harry’s frame, arms snaking under him to pull Harry close. His entire body pressed against Harry’s from head to foot, and Harry didn’t put up a fight at all when Severus’s mouth met his for a kiss that was heated and made him feel as though Snape were branding Harry his own. By now Harry had decided that he’d been remembering things, that what was happening now with Severus had happened before, and that he should just sodding enjoy it. He’d wanted to enjoy Snape when he’d seen him in that memory shagging Regulus. He had wanted it so badly; that was why Harry had gotten hard and hadn’t been able to focus enough to confront Snape right away.

God.

Severus’s tongue slide against his and Harry came completely undone, bucking his hips up, pleasure rolling through him. His hands jerked, needing to touch Severus, but all he succeeded in doing was jerking his ankles up hard, which made him yelp against Severus’s mouth.

“Careful,” Severus murmured against Harry’s ear, breath warm and tickling the sensitive shell.

“Yeah,” Harry gasped, screwing his eyes shut as he felt Severus shift atop him.

Then he felt a tongue swirl around the head of his cock and Harry was completely a goner. “Ohhhhh,” he moaned, hips arching upward, his cock neatly and swiftly captured by Severus’s mouth, which moved down to the root.

Harry had always thought it was total bollocks when he’d heard Seamus boasting that Dean gave him such a brilliant blow that he’d seen stars, but now he knew it isn’t bollocks, because he sure as all ruddy hell saw stars and more. Severus took him all the way, sucking and nipping and laving him with his tongue, nibbling at the head and then smoothing out the sting before sinking right down to the base, applying the hardest pressure right there. A bit more pressure, followed by the scraping of teeth, and then Harry thought for sure his cock was going to slip out of Severus’s mouth, and he whined at the notion, but then Severus quickly sucked it back in and continued his ministrations.

Harry couldn’t take much more of this. Hips jerked uncontrollably and he groaned, frustrated that he couldn’t use his ruddy hands. “Please,” he grunted. “Please.”

In response to that, Severus hummed, and the sensations were fucking wicked, the vibrations making his already-sensitive cock leap and twitch in the warm cavern of Severus’s mouth.

“Fuuuuuuck.”

Severus’s hands slid up his thighs, his mouth never deviating from the rhythm he’d established. Fingertips traced lightly along the crease where thigh met leg, and Harry jerked, the featherlight sensation feeling incredibly erotic and intimate on account of his heightened senses. He could feel himself beginning to crest, and he hoped like hell that he’d last longer than he thought he would, but Harry knew it was a futile wish when Severus’s fingers ghosted over his perineum before pinching and fondling his balls. That last bit was his undoing, and he bucked wildly into Severus’s mouth, unable to help himself. Once, twice, three times and then it was over. Slumping back against the desk, wrists feeling sore from straining against his bonds, he saw orange and black swim before his eyes. “Tiger butterfly,” he mumbled, head lolling to the side. On a table adjacent to the desk were a few containers, all glass and full of different coloured liquids. One was a murky yellow, and Harry frowned, trying to remember its importance.

“What was that?” Severus murmured, idly fingering one of the ties binding Harry’s wrist to his ankle.

“Tiger butterfly,” Harry repeated, then rolled back to look at the ceiling. That’s when he saw it again – the orange and the black. A butterfly was looping around the room just below the ceiling.

Severus tilted his head back to see what the fuss was about. “Lycorea cleabaea,” he corrected.

“Whatever,” Harry mumbled, too tired and sated to argue.

“Not ‘whatever’, Potter. What is it?”

“No--” Harry had started to answer him, but the butterfly began weaving back and forth almost drunkenly, then began to spin uncontrollably toward the table. Sure enough, it plopped right into the beaker full of a yellow liquid.

“Butterflies are glorious creatures. Did you know?”

“How so?” Harry asked around a yawn, covering his mouth gratefully with a newly-freed hand.

“They symbolise transformation, renewal, rebirth. Many people long for a new beginning, Potter.” Severus smiled grimly as he undid the other tie.

Harry paused, considering this, considering everything he’d seen and done over the last twenty-four hours or so.

“I’m ready to begin again.”

NOTE: Though I have never seen the film Butterfly Effect, recently a student of mine told me about the story, and some elements of the film’s plot just so happened to work for this fic. The ending scene in the past was certainly inspired by events in the film. I did not wish to include this in the header so as not to spoil anyone about the plot of this fic.