Chapter Text
Mist hung over the still-filthy river. Its waters curved past overgrown banks, where piles of rubbish lay scattered. In the distance, a huge chimney loomed, grim and menacing against the dull gray sky.
This was the first time Harry had actually stood here. He’d seen it countless times in the memories of Snape’s childhood, but the scene before him matched those memories exactly, as if time had frozen here.
A cold wind blew, carrying the stench of rotting sewage from the river—sickening, cloying.
He walked along the cobblestone path, his footsteps loud in the silence. Most of the windows in the houses nearby were boarded up; some were shattered. Harry passed these crumbling buildings step by step, until he stopped at the last house at the end.
It was Severus Snape’s house—just as gloomy and closed-off as the man himself. The paint-peeled wooden door was shut tight, its doorknob rusted over, like it hadn’t been touched in years.
He reached for the knob. The lock was rusted but still held fast. Harry hesitated, then pulled out his wand.
“Alohomora.”
The lock screeched with a harsh, grinding sound, and the door creaked open. Hitting him first was a strange mix of mildew and potion ingredients—a weird smell, just like the perpetual herbal tang that clung to Snape’s robes.
The dim living room felt as cold and sterile as a hospital ward. The bookshelves on the walls were empty; the furniture was draped in thick dust.
The Aurors had already searched the place. The Ministry wouldn’t miss a single Death Eater’s residence. But those searchers clearly hadn’t cared about Snape’s personal things. Proof lay in the pile of parchment scattered in the corner, covered in the Aurors’ muddy footprints.
Harry knelt down, his wand tip glowing faintly. He carefully picked up the yellowed parchment. Most were potion recipes, the handwriting neat to the point of being fussy, the ink slashing sharp angles across the page.
The Aurors had glanced over this corner in a hurry, obviously not recognizing the value of these notes. Harry brushed dust from the corners of the parchment and tucked them into his leather bag, which he’d charmed with an Extension Charm.
She’d take good care of these. Harry had come here because of her request, after all.
He glanced around the cold room. On a shelf by the kitchen door sat a few empty wine bottles. Above the fireplace, the glass of a picture frame was cracked, but the dark-haired woman in the photo still stared into the distance with empty eyes.
The stairs groaned under his weight. Harry climbed to the second floor, where a clear drag mark on the floor led to the bedroom at the end. The door was ajar; he pushed it open gently.
A single bed was covered in a sheet washed pale. On the nightstand lay a book, its margins filled with dense notes.Unfortunately, the book wasn’t marked with "This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince."
A raven cawed outside, and Harry noticed the desk faced that huge chimney. From here, the chimney blocked nearly half the sky. He imagined a young Snape sitting here, staring at this gray view day after day.
For the adult Snape, this hadn’t felt like a home. More like a temporary cave to hole up in.
He opened the wardrobe.Several black robes hung neatly inside. At the back was an iron box, but Harry didn’t touch it. He knew what was inside—a boy’s most painful memory, a wound that would never heal. It belonged here.
Harry suddenly understood why Snape always wore black. In this gray world, black was the color that showed the least dirt.
That’s why he’d walked so resolutely toward death, Harry thought. He’d never truly known Snape. Those memory fragments he’d seen in the Pensieve had only pieced together a outline—full of pain, regret, and twisted courage.
Harry backed out of the bedroom. The stairs’ groan was jarringly loud in the silent house. He descended and stood in the middle of the empty living room, taking one last look around the space that had held so much of Snape’s loneliness and pain over half a lifetime. The task was mostly done—he should head back.
But the second he took his first step, a sharp burst of murderous intent erupted without warning from the kitchen behind him.
Harry’s hackles rose instantly. The instincts from his days on the run kicked in faster than thought. He didn’t even have time to turn—his body lurched sideways in a dive!
A flash of cold light hissed past, barely grazing the back of his neck. A heavy rush of wind followed. Harry crashed clumsily to the floor, knocking over a dusty chair beside him with a loud clatter. He rolled over quickly, wand snapping up to point at his attacker.
The attacker, too, seemed thrown off by the missed strike, stumbling slightly. A tall, thin figure in black blocked the kitchen doorway, backlit by the faint light filtering through the kitchen’s small window—only a blurred outline was visible. In their hand, a knife glinted coldly in the dimness.
A Muggle? Harry doubted Voldemort’s remnants would use such a plain method of attack. His fingers tightened around his wand; a spell hovered on the tip of his tongue.
In that split second, the attacker seemed to steady themselves, stepping forward—and more light fell on their face.
That face.
Waxy skin, a large hooked nose, and in his sunken eye sockets, those familiar black eyes blazing with cold fury and extreme wariness.
Time seemed to freeze. Harry’s arm, still raised with his wand, went rigid. His mind went blank, as if his blood had stopped flowing. He stared in disbelief at the knife-wielding man—the man who should have died months ago.
Severus Snape!
Snape, clearly having recognized Harry’s face, had his wariness instantly replaced by a complicated shock, beneath which churned intense loathing and deeper incredulity. His grip on the knife trembled violently.
“Potter?” “Snape?!”
The words burst from their mouths at the same time.
Harry’s heart thundered in his chest, nearly drowning out his ragged breathing. This was impossible! Snape was dead! He’d seen it himself—Nagini’s fangs… the memories he’d passed on in his last moments… everything pointed to the cold truth: Severus Snape had died over two months ago.
But the attacker before him—the man who looked so like Snape—stiffened almost imperceptibly the second Harry spoke his name.
Polyjuice Potion? The thought hit him like a bucket of ice, instantly overriding his initial shock. Was this really a remaining Death Eater? Did they know Snape was dead, using this to unnerve him?
But why attack with a kitchen knife instead of a wand?
The attacker seemed to snap out of his initial shock quickly. He lowered the arm holding the knife, straightened his posture, and the cold, condescending hostility radiating from him didn’t fade in the least.
“Potter,” his voice was raw, “an unexpectedly shabby tactic.”
Harry’s grip on his wand tightened; he didn’t dare relax. That voice was too like—but he couldn’t be sure. Polyjuice could mimic voice and appearance perfectly.
“Do you think,” the man continued in that harsh whisper, his mouth twisting into a sneer full of mockery and malice, “that spiriting me here with a shoddy Portkey stashed in the Headmaster’s office…” He tilted his head slightly, his gaze sweeping the squalid room, then hardening with deeper revulsion, “will avenge your precious Dumbledore?”
Harry’s breath caught. A Portkey from the Headmaster’s office? Avenging Dumbledore? What on earth was he talking about?
“Shut up!” Harry snapped. “Who the hell are you? Don’t think you can fool me with Polyjuice! Severus Snape is dead!”
The response was a short, scathing laugh.
“Dead?” the Snape-like man repeated, the fire in those black eyes flaring hotter, almost spilling over.
He leaned forward slightly, ignoring the deadly wand pointed at him.
“In your pathetic, hate-addled brain, I‘ve probably deserved death a thousand times over. But the reality, Potter, is that I’m standing here—trapped in this… shoddy, Muggle-style trap of yours!”
“And I,” he hissed, “as Headmaster of Hogwarts, have an entire school of students to manage. I don’t have time to play your idiotic revenge games. Tell me,what is your purpose in dragging me here?”
His gaze coiled around Harry’s face like a snake.
“Or… have you finally decided to do it yourself?”
Harry stared at him, confused.
“Headmaster? Headmaster of Hogwarts? What’s the date? Tell me!”
Snape(for lack of a better name)scowled fiercely, as if Harry had asked something utterly idiotic.
“Spare me the pretense, Potter! Do you think stalling will change anything? It’s April 30th!”
April 30th! 1998! Harry’s eyes widened. He knew better than anyone—only three days left until Nagini’s fangs would kill him.
A ridiculous, yet the only possible explanation for what he was seeing, struck his muddled thoughts like a bolt of lightning.
Time magic? Some unstable Portkey that had pulled him from the Headmaster’s office… or rather, pulled Snape from the past into the present?
“You…” Harry started, voice strained, “you were… in the Headmaster’s office? Then the Portkey brought you here? Now?”
A flicker of confusion flashed in Snape’s eyes, quickly smothered by deeper loathing. “Drop the pathetic act, Potter! Tell me your trick! Why bring me here? Why—”
“But it’s July 1998 now!”
Under the other man’s wary gaze, Harry cast a spell. The magic clearly showed the time: “July 28th, 1998, 09:19.”
The knife slipped from Snape’s hand, clattering to the floor.
“Professor Snape…” Harry said slowly, with extreme difficulty, lowering his wand, “I… I don’t know how to explain it. But please believe me,I didn’t set any Portkey trap.”
“I think, Professor,” he said, “you might have come to the future.”
Snape fell silent.
A heavy stillness hung in the dusty air, broken only by the faint, low hum of the distant chimney and their strained, muffled breathing.
He stood like a frozen statue, save for those jet-black eyes, which raked over Harry’s face again and again, as if trying to dig up traces of lies or signs of madness.
“The future?” he finally spoke, his voice cold. “A remarkably convenient excuse, Potter. Especially when your little trick has unraveled, leaving you unable to explain why I’m in my own house.”
His gaze swept over the empty bookshelves, the footprint-strewn parchment scraps, the dust-shrouded furniture, and settled back on Harry.
“You, trespassing on my private property, rummaging through my things… and now you try to fob me off with this absurd time trick? Do you think I’d believe you—a simplistic, impulsive boy who loathes me with every fiber of his being?”
“You could use Legilimency on me, Professor,” Harry said, his voice hoarse with tension. But he forced himself to meet those unreadable black eyes, speaking clearly.
It was the only way he could think of to prove himself quickly—even if the thought of laying his mind bare to Snape made his skin crawl.
Snape stared at him with a look bordering on surprise, sharp and evaluating, as if weighing the intent behind the offer. He didn’t reply immediately; instead, he slowly, meticulously scanned the room again.
His eyes took in every dust-caked surface, every sign of disturbance, until they landed on the cracked frame above the fireplace. In it, Eileen Prince’s vacant stare seemed to silently testify to the passage of time.
A muscle in his face twitched almost imperceptibly.
“Very well, Potter. I shall temporarily accept your bizarre tale about the future.”
“Er,” Harry stammered, disbelief coloring his voice, “that’s it? You’re just… believing me? You’re not going to use Legilimency?”
He almost added, You’re not even going to pry into my mind?
“Regrettably,” Snape’s voice ground out through gritted teeth, tinged with something close to gnashing resentment, “I cannot perform any magic, Potter. A failing that no doubt disappoints the Chosen One’s ‘reasonable’ demands.”
“Cannot use magic?!”
“Spare me that idiotic expression, Potter,” he narrowed his eyes. “If we’re to indulge your preposterous ‘future’ theory, perhaps this is a side effect of time travel.”
“So you… defeated the Dark Lord, then? And… you’re alive?” It sounded like he was confirming the most basic fact.
“We did, Professor,” Harry corrected. “Many died. But in the end, Voldemort is dead.” He emphasized the name, letting the finality hang.
After a brief silence, Snape spoke again. “How did I die?”
“You…” Harry swallowed hard, his throat tightening as the bloody image flashed in his mind. “You were killed by Voldemort’s snake, Nagini. In the Shrieking Shack. Nagini… she was one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.”
“Hmm.” Snape made a short, flat sound, as casual as commenting on the weather. “A most unexpected death.” He scoffed, self-deprecating. “I’d thought it would be at the hands of someone seeking revenge.”
Harry’s heart sank. The calmer Snape’s tone, the more searing the self-loathing and despair beneath it. He remembered the words Snape had spoken to Dumbledore in the Pensieve memories—“What about my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?”
He truly had thought he’d die at the hands of some avenger, Harry realized—punishment for killing Dumbledore, the inevitable end for a soul as “tainted” as he saw his own. Killed by Voldemort’s snake? It must have been the last death he’d imagined.
“It wasn’t revenge!” Harry burst out, his voice sharp with urgency. “It was protection! To protect Hogwarts’ students! To protect the truth! Voldemort thought you were the master of the Elder Wand, so he—”
“The Elder Wand?” Snape muttered. “Blasted Albus. He did keep the crux from me… And the Horcruxes… no wonder, these past weeks, he’s been harping on me to remind you to destroy the Dark Lord’s snake…”
“When did I die?” he asked suddenly, his expression severe.
“…May 2nd.”