He twisted the power dial - the black one where, morbidly, the fish's eye ought to be - and groaned. "Bollocking piece of two-Sickle shite!" He smacked the hissing fish, twisting the tuner dial with a sneer and a heavy hand. "Happens nearly every day. Twenty years of teaching those little cretins and this is all I get?" He smacked it, eyes shut as usual, steaming water hissing almost as loudly as the fish.

Severus hauled back and gave it one last good wallop, and a wave of dizziness washed over him. He growled. For some reason, he suddenly didn't feel so much like himself. Well. Perhaps that was a good thing. God knew he'd give his wand some days to be somebody else.

Sushi smacked the Tune-A-Fish again. "Stupid batteries," she muttered. "Don't last twenty minutes. Come on, how much does it take to power a radio receiver anyway?"

The fish hissed mockingly. Sushi growled. The thing couldn't be broken - she'd just gotten it for Christmas! With a heavy sigh, she smacked it again. An odd tingle went through her, culminating in a burst of dizziness. She sighed again and, rather than risk another bout, simply kept her eyes shut as she reached for the shampoo.

Hmm, Severus thought idly, not as greasy as usual. I shall have to remedy this.

Hmm, Sushi thought idly, slimy. This is what I get for not washing my hair last night.

Several minutes later, after an annoyingly brief, drowsy shower, Severus stepped out of the tub's enclosure. His long toes curled hedonistically in the soft, green rug. He hadn't opened his eyes yet. Of course, he never did until he'd brushed his teeth. He couldn't face himself until he'd brushed his teeth.

Reaching out for one of his fluffy Slytherin green towels, he wrapped it around his waist. Something felt… well, bloated. Strange. He dimly recalled feeling a bit, well, fluffy in the shower as well. He'd ignored it - the fumes from Longbottom's homework were probably to blame.

He stumbled out into the rest of the bathroom. The teachers, despite having rooms in which one could hold Quidditch finals, were subjected to the most pathetic of loos. A small, boxy anteroom held toilet, sink, and enough storage space to lodge a flea, and a longer inner chamber held the bath. He'd had larger bathrooms in flats! At least he didn't have to pay for his lodgings. At least, not with any more than my soul. Bloody cretins, I could have been an apothecary but, oh, no, I had to teach.

Groping for toothbrush and toothpaste, Severus assembled them in the traditional fashion, and stuck the lot in his mouth. His lip curled as he tasted, rather than the familiar mint, some odd variant of bubble gum. He hoped. I shall have to speak with the house-elves, he thought with some slight edge of malicious glee.

Spitting into the basin, Severus rinsed his mouth, and opened his eyes to an unexpectedly blurry world.

Sushi stumbled out of the shower and threw one of the fluffy purple towels around her chest. It seemed a bit short today - perhaps they'd shrunk in the wash. Joy, she thought sardonically. She made her blind way into the rest of the bathroom, eyes closed because, really, there wasn't a point in opening them before she had her contacts in.

She groped around for her toothbrush. A few moments later, she'd stuck it in her mouth, wondering vaguely when she'd gone back to mint.

Spitting into the sink, she rinsed her mouth, and opened her eyes to an unexpectedly lucid world.

Severus frowned. What on Earth did Longbottom put into that poor cauldron? If the fumes were enough to cause blindness (not to mention hallucinations - what little he could see of himself almost seemed to have... red... hair), he dreaded to think what would happen to Longbottom himself. Well. Those pleasant thoughts could wait until he'd rectified the matter.

He put his hand on the counter to steady himself. Something suspiciously like glasses rested under his palm. He frowned. One of Albus' little jokes, perhaps? One would think he'd have learned after last time. He didn't stop bobbing on the ceiling for a week!

Gingerly, he unfolded the glasses, suspiciously put them on, looked in the mirror again--

Sometimes, a cosmic event occurs in two places at once. Sometimes, two completely separate beings become aware, intimately, of the other's existence in one abrupt moment, despite such logical details as time zones and relative universes. This was one of those moments.

On two sides of the Atlantic rang sudden, identical screeches of shock, confusion, and disbelief. This mutual screech, had anyone been present to hear it, would have peeled the paint from walls and faded the average blue streak to a pale sort of grey.

It shan't be printed here in consideration of our gentler readers. However, you ought to get the point.

Severus stared.

At his chest.

Those weren't there yesterday. Good god, what did Longbottom put in that poor cauldron?

Gingerly, he unwrapped the (purple) towel and looked down. A bolt of loss shot through him and he whimpered pitifully. "Oh, good god, no," he whispered in a disconcertingly feminine (and American) voice.

His Little Slytherin was gone.

Eyes wide and mouth rigid with shock, he snapped his head up and stared in the mirror. A green-eyed, bespectacled, snub-nosed, red-haired, chubby woman stared back. A good quarter inch of a colour he could only describe as "mousy" stood out at the base of the red hair. Gingerly, he touched the mirror. His hand matched the small, stubby one that met it.

I do believe, he thought as the world went a bit hazy, that this shan't be my day.

Sushi stared openly. Holy fuck. Last time I eat vindaloo before bed.

Gingerly, she poked what seemed to be her nose. It was, well, large. And hooked. Nice change from the lump she was used to, granted, but a bit sudden. Well, that and the fact that she seemed to have beard stubble. Shaving it, unfortunately, would be hazardous to her health, as she'd proven on her legs repeatedly since the time she needed a tetanus shot for razor burn.

Oh, come on. You're just dreaming, Sushi. Wake up. She pinched herself.

Nothing.

She pinched herself again, in that little spot on her elbow that always hurt like the dickens.

Nada. Zero, nil, zip. The obligatory "yip!" of pain came out in a deep growl.

A bit apprehensively, she turned around. She was tall, for once in her life, and skinny (again, for once in her life), with black hair (not the first time) and eyes (now I don't need those colored contacts!). And a green towel.

And, she discovered on unwrapping the towel, a penis.

She stared. A soft whimper of confusion escaped her lips. "Oh, my god," she whispered in a disconcertingly masculine (and British) voice.

Somehow, she couldn't quite bring herself to poke it.

This, she thought as the world went a bit hazy, is going to be a long day.

The closet, once he found it in what seemed to be a smallish flat with an incontrovertible amount of clutter, incited a groan. Perhaps due to the lack of space, clothes were stuffed everywhere. To make matters worse, everything seemed to be black. Even after he'd turned on the light. With a growl significantly less menacing than usual, Severus wrenched his way through the hanging clothes. There was nothing that decently resembled a robe, not a thing. What sort of witch have I become?

Oh. Oh, shite.

A Muggle one.

Not quite sure he wanted to do it, he lifted a finger and pointed it at a stuffed howler monkey. "Wingardium leviosa!"

The monkey sat there, looking happily confused amongst its plush brethren.

Severus had the sudden, unthinkable thought, But what about my body? The (hopefully) logical conclusion was that it was currently in the possession of a small, chubby, red-haired Muggle woman from an undisclosed part of the New World. He thudded his head against the wall, muttering, "No, no, for the love of god, no."

He had to get home.

First, though, that meant finding out what was going on. Right after he got dressed.

Sushi stared at the closet. "Wow." Black robes hung neatly, side by side, accompanied by... well, pretty much her ideal clothes when the weather permitted. In other words: conservative and black. She'd already scared up a pair of black cotton boxer shorts. Shifting against the alien sensation of having her bits on the outside and still coming to terms with the concept of putting on someone else's underwear, she skinned quickly into a pair of trousers, a stiff-collared shirt that wouldn't have fit around her chest in her real body, a pair of leather suspenders (or is that "braces"?), and threw a lovely, long black wool jacket with a high collar over the mess.

She purred. This was the epitome of comfortable clothing.

Severus growled at himself in the mirror and tried to adjust his skirt. He'd been lucky enough to find it, along with a plain, white cotton shirt with too many buttons even for him, and a black vest with an acceptably high collar. He frowned at himself.

The woman frowned back.

Sighing, he scrabbled up a pair of socks and some leather boots, threw a poorly sewn black satin cape over his clothes (probably an old Halloween costume - Muggles dress like idiots on Halloween, don't they?), and stalked out of the disgrace of a bedroom to inspect the rest of the mess.

He stuck his head into a small room. Three of those Muggle devices called "computing machines" (or some such nonsense) sat, waiting blankly for whatever commands they might receive. One was flanked by posters proclaiming "Jango Fett" and "Colazione da Tiffany". That wasn't what stole his attention, though.

"Salazar and Merlin, where the Hell am I?" he asked no-one as Voldemort stared intently at him from the wall.

Well, a poor rendition of Voldemort's eyes, anyway, with the words "You Know Who" on the background. For some reason, Potter's name was on the bottom of the poster.

Rubbing his eyes, wondering what sort of nightmare he'd fallen into, he turned a hundred and eighty degrees to see himself.

His proper self.

Or, more precisely, not.

His lip wrinkled. Once again, Potter's name was emblazoned across the thing, and the words "The Subtle Science of Potion Making" graced it as well. What he supposed was supposed to be him was a bizarre, grumpy-looking fellow with a squashed nose and purple fingernails. "I've never varnished my nails in my life!"

He thought the other figures were Potter, Weasley, and Granger, but they were poor likenesses at best. Well, perhaps not so bad six years ago, but the three of them had grown up in the meantime. Especially Potter. He picked up a horned, pink rubber duck from a desk and tossed it between his hands absently, thinking back to the night before when Harry had, ah, come in for his tutoring session.

He froze. The duck fell to the floor. Oh, sweet Merlin!

His reputation was going to be ruined.

Sushi rifled through the desk. She chewed her lip pensively, bringing up bag after bag of strange, leaf-like substances. Okay. Am I a chef, or a dealer? A chef she could probably handle, assuming her clients wanted tofu, lightly burned. A dealer, given her utter lack of sales technique, was going to be a slightly different matter.

As she picked up a sheaf of papers (look more like some kind of parchment), a small metal case fell to the floor. Curiously, she picked it up, checking to make sure it hadn't dented on the stones. There was a button on the side. She pressed it, and the lid flew open. There, before her eyes, formed in silver and green on a black background:

She flicked a surprised eyebrow. She glanced in the mirror, ascertained that she did, indeed, have slightly sallower skin than usual (never having had a healthy glow to begin with, Sushi hadn't noticed it in light of other, more extreme, changes). Going back to the name cards, she snorted.

"Spiffy. Nancy's going to be impressed." She sniggered softly, flipping through a large, flat book to see if Snape did, indeed, have a slightly different lesson planned.

A few moments later, the teacher's planner crashed to the floor. She stared at the open page. It read "Seventh Year Slytherin/Gryffindork", and the list of names was familiar: Malfoy. Parkinson. Zabini. Granger. Longbottom. Weasley.

Potter.

"Oh, my god. It's real. It's all real." The space between her ears felt emptier and a bit more buoyant than usual. She looked again. Given the list of students and their teacher, it certainly wasn't the 1940s, and Tom Riddle probably wasn't just around the corner, ripe for the flirting. And that could only mean...

Scrabbling with her left sleeves, she shoved them up to the elbow. On her forearm was a small skull with a snake coming out of its mouth.

She blinked.

Somehow, getting a tattoo of the Dark Mark didn't seem like such a superficial decision anymore.

He poked it.

It jiggled gently.

He poked it again, somewhat harder. Snape's pudgy, nail-bitten finger went into the block of tofu with a soft squish. He cringed, baring much straighter teeth than he'd had since childhood. "If you think I'm bloody well putting that in my mouth, mate, you're dead wrong." The words sounded hideously alien, almost sacrilegious, in the American accent. With a snarl (a pathetic shadow of its proper glory) he slammed the fridge door and yanked open the freezer.

Ah-ha!

Somewhat more satisfied, he pulled out a lump of chicken. After several minutes of staring at the "stove" thing he'd learned about in Muggle Studies all those years ago (and deciding it was the eclectic kind, not a gaseous matter-fueled incendiary one), he turned the dial to 400 (after doing a quick Celsius-to-Fahrenheit calculation in his head) and went to seek some signs of his newfound (and hopefully temporary) identity.

Sushi, after the better part of an hour spent wandering the halls and asking (then, when they only stared in shock, demanding of) the portraits how to get to breakfast, sat down nervously at the high table. She glanced around, pushing a bit of hair behind an unfamiliar ear. Several teachers still lingered at the table, as did many a student at each of the four long tables. It was easy enough to tell which was which House thanks to the bright banners hanging over each.

"Morning, Severus," a beady-eyed witch in a stiff hat and green head wrap chirped.

"Morning... Minerva," Sushi said warily.

She peered at her (er... him). "Are you feeling quite all right this morning?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I'm Sibyll." As if to prove it, she pulled an enormously thick pair of glasses from her pocket and put them on. Sushi groaned; she slapped her face as she realised that, under the heavy black cloak, Sibyll was wearing a gauzy, spangled outfit to rival the wildest of Sushi's old belly dance costume designs.

"Sorry," she muttered, and quickly turned her attention to the table. "Okay... not very vegetarian friendly, are we?"

The other teachers stared. With looks of strong unease they picked up their forks again and went back to eating.

Sushi arched an eyebrow (much easier, in Snape's body) and glanced around the table. There were eggs, of course, and some suspicious-looking crumpets almost floating in butter, and kippers (after her incident with the sardine-flavored "Bott's Bean" she'd had quite enough of anything fishy, thank you), and she almost had something until she realised the tomatoes had probably been fried with those sausages. The pool of grease at the bottom of the dish didn't help matters.

And then she saw them. They were red, shining in the artificial sunlight, rich and fresh and haloed with green fringe. He stomach growled, and she very nearly drooled. Reaching forward in a kind of starved awe, she grabbed the bowl of strawberries, plunked it down on her plate, and before Hagrid's yelp reached her ears had popped one in her mouth.

"Good berries," she said, chewing rabidly. "Got any more?"

The entire table stared. So did most of the Slytherin table. All four tables, for that matter. Draco(?) pointed, jaw slack. Harry(?) in particular looked like his eyes were going to pop out of his skull.

"Erm... I'll just go get Poppy." A tiny wizard - Flitwick, presumably - hopped down from his chair and scurried out the door as quickly as he could.

"Poppy Pomfrey?" Sushi asked.

"Shh." Sibyll stroked her/his hand gently. "Don't try to say--FOR MERLIN'S SAKE, SEVERUS, GET THAT THING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!" She yanked the berry out from between Sushi's teeth and smacked her in the back of the head until she spat out what she'd bitten off.

"What?" Sushi flung an arm out to indicate the table. "What else am I supposed to eat? Everything else'll make me--urrgh. I don't feel too well..."

She had a brief impression of the world going all spinny before she landed face-first in the bowl.

"Urrgh..." Severus clutched his stomach and collapsed. His head landed in the hallway, most of his body still in the bathroom. "I haven't felt this bad since Black fed me that fucking strawberry daiquiri," he moaned to no-one in particular. Closing his eyes, he waited for the next bout of nausea to hit.

And opened them the moment he felt something warm and moist touch his eyelid. A small, reddish brown nose, set in a white muzzle and fringed with the longest whiskers he'd ever seen, sniffed at his face. A moment later a stripy cat with ginger patches flopped down in the crook of his neck and purred.

"Yes?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

The cat looked at him with drowsy eyes and rubbed its face all over his.

He shoved it away. "Bugger off."

It gave him a stunned, indignant look. And plopped down on his face.

Severus growled softly under his breath. If I wanted something's arse shoved in my face I'd go see Voldemort. "You," he said, lifting the gratuitously heavy cat off his face so all four legs dangled over him, "are going to leave me alone. Do you understand?"

The cat stared at him a moment, struggled, swiped a paw across his nose, and ran off while he howled in pain. He sat up violently enough to trigger another rush of nausea, and clapped a hand over his mouth.

A moment later he wondered again what the Hell had been wrong with that chicken sandwich.

Forty minutes later, when Sushi had not only experienced anaphylactic shock first-hand but been revived in a matter of minutes by Madam Poppy Pomfrey, she stood in front of a group of students. They stared at her with mixed trepidation and disappointment. She stared back. One of the boys - they couldn't have been more than twelve - raised his hand. He trembled so much she could barely make out the badger on his House badge.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Um... Professor Snape... um... what potion are we making?"

Oh, crap. I forgot the planner! Sushi racked her brain to come up with something from the books. Equally, she racked her brain to separate fanfic from canon, something more easily said than done. She was relatively sure Heavenly Blue wasn't on the curriculum, nor was Incendius Solution. Similarly, she doubted the ickle wee ones would be making Polyjuice Potion or Veritaserum. "Um..."

"It's okay, Professor. My brother's allergic to strawberries, too. He gets hives."

Now, Sushi had the sneaking suspicion this wasn't the sort of thing Professor Snape should be told by a first (or second) year Hufflepuff. Drawing herself up, she snapped, "I have no interest in you brother's immunological condition, Mister..."

"Um... Finch-Fletchley, sir," the boy said with a look of confusion. "Jenner Finch-Fletchley."

"Well, then, Mister Finch-Fletchley," Sushi said (hoping the foot in her mouth didn't muffle things too badly), "as I said, I have no interest in your brother's immunological condition. Get out your cauldrons and turn to page six-hundred and forty-eight in your texts."

They stared at her again.

"Well?" she barked. "Do it!"

A young Ravenclaw (if that blue badge meant anything) raised her hand. "Sir?"

"What?"

"Um... there are only four-hundred and twelve pages in our books." She tipped hers up so that Sushi could see the page numbers upside-down. "See?"

"Great," Sushi drawled not so far under her breath as she'd hoped. The quizzical, uneasy looks she received didn't help matters. "Just... make something. Tell me what it is. I'll give you your grades tomorrow."

"Grades?" Jenner peered at her.

Oh, crap, what did Lexin tell me again? "Marks."

"Does that mean you're not going to look at them, sir?" said the girl again. "I mean, sir, you usually look at them... um... are you sure you're feeling okay?"

Sushi picked up the grade book sitting on the desk behind her and pretended to look through to hide the red tinge to her face. "Forget what I just said," she muttered. "Um... write me an essay on... um... fennel. Thirty inches. In next week." She peeked over the top of the book to find a sea of disbelieving sneers. "Well? Get to it!"

While a sea of quills and parchment were whipped out of bags, she hunkered down behind the desk. Every few seconds a student would glance at her warily. She scowled back, and they would stop, only to be replaced by someone else. Mentally, she made a note to be nicer to her sisters. After all, they did this "teaching" thing for a living.

Severus stared at the screen on the desk.

He poked it.

He pushed buttons.

Nothing. Zip. Zero.

"I command you to work!" He walloped the thing on the side and only succeeded in making his palm sting.

Rubbing his eyes, he tried to remember how those "computing machine" things worked. He seemed to recall from Muggle Studies something about little scraps of paper with holes in, and reels of "tape". Despite the number of scraps of paper littering the desk, he suspected technology might have made some small advances in the last quarter century or so. However, the majority of clutter seemed centred around this particular spot (including many a fragment of food-related paraphernalia), so it seemed like an ideal place to check for clues to his new identity.

After several more minutes of poking around, and the unearthing of a watch with the Slytherin crest on the face (which he gladly strapped on), he hit a button that did something. It was on the front of the large silvery box on the floor. Suspiciously, he leaned back in the black and white armchair in front of the desk and glared suspiciously as something called "Windows" took over the machine.

Small pictures filled the screen. He squinted, trying to read the tiny letter through what seemed to be horridly out-of-date spectacles. He tapped the screen, only to hear the clinking sound of nail on glass. He scowled. Shifting in his chair, he accidentally bumped part of the desk. A tray of some sort rolled out and thumped him in the chest. A small arrow in the middle of the screen jiggled. "Hmm."

After a great deal of trial and error, he found himself with a hand on a small plastic device that rolled over a cloth pad, and a grey screen that insisted on calling itself "Word". A variety of words and pictures ran across the top. Squinting suspiciously, he manoeuvred the arrow until it hung over the first word in the top bar, "File". Brilliant, just bloody brilliant. Muggle technology. Might as well see into what Hell this forces me to descend.

Sushi rubbed her eyes. It was lunchtime, finally, and her stomach was doing its impression of the bass speakers at a Pantera concert. The seventh year Gryffindork--er, Gryffindors and Slytherins filed out. She watched them go through narrowed eyes. (Pounding hunger always made her cranky.)

When the door finally closed, she groaned and dropped her head on the desk. Gentle fingers worked their way through the hair at the back of her neck and stroked. She purred. (As everyone knows, the best way to turn the wild Sushi into a quivering lump of goo is to rub her back.)

"Feeling better, Professor?"

Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a jolt. Draco (it was, indeed, Draco Malfoy) stared at her (er... him) with heavy-lidded, smoldering eyes. His back was slumped languidly, and he leaned against the desk on one delicate hand.

"What the fuck are you still doing here?" she sputtered.

"Exactly that, I hope," he purred, and swooped in to put his lips to hers... er, Snape's.

Sushi froze and squeaked. "Er..."

Draco pulled back, pouting. "What's wrong? I thought you liked it when I'm forward." His eyes still burned, but had grown huge and limpid. Sushi half-expected him to say, "I've been a baaaaaaaad widdle boy."

"Er... yes. Erm... but, um," she stammered, inching her chair back, "doctor's orders. No rampant buggery until I'm myself you'll have to excuse me have a good day, Mister Malfoy." She got to her feet and tore out of the classroom as fast as her long(!) legs would take her. Panting hard, she leaned against the wall behind a tapestry somewhere on the ground floor. "Crap," she said to herself in a high-pitched voice. "Guess Black and Silver was the right ship after all."

Snape's jaw had long since dropped. The... stories he'd found on this woman's computing machine were enough to bring a scarlet blush to his cheeks. Not to mention they were for the most part thoroughly wrong. "My grandmother was a flipping dragon herder," he muttered to himself. "And she's still alive, thank you very much!"

Among other raging discrepancies he'd discovered were: the fevered imagination that he was baby anything to Lucius Malfoy; the concept that his mum was from India (Welsh, thank you very much!); the very notion that he would ever ingest unicorn blood (not after what happened to Voldemort - back before Severus' day he'd been one fine bit of crumpet with an arse that just wouldn't quit); and the mere idea of Draco ever wearing a zoot suit. There were more - and plenty of them - but Snape was too stunned to think straight given the flimflam he'd just experienced.

He rubbed his temples. There was a sudden floomp on the back of the chair, and a long, fluffy tail wrapped around his face.

"Go away, cat."

The cat lay down and purred at him contentedly.

"I said, cat, go away."

It yawned. Its breath would have made Hagrid cringe.

"What do you want?"

The purr started lower. It lifted its chin expectantly.

Severus sighed. "Fine." With no small bit of annoyance, he scratched the furry little monster on the back of the neck. The cat purred louder, rubbing its head into the scratch. It was sort of cute, in a flea-bitten way. Snape felt the corners of his mouth twitch--

"YOW!" He wrenched his hand away from the beast's claws and impossibly sharp teeth. The cat rolled off the back of the chair and tore out of the room fast enough to make the floor shake.

Growling to himself and sucking blood from his fingers, he turned back to the screen. It mocked him with its lies.

Suddenly, he had an idea.

Making a blank page, he looked at the keyboard and, very slowly, very, very slowly, began to hunt and peck.

"Ah, Severus, have you got a moment?"

Sushi froze. It took a moment for her ingrained "don't get caught" sensibilities to back off and remind her that, this time, she was one of the people who did the catching. Very slowly, she turned around, a look of perfect innocence habitually (and somewhat incongruously, given) plastered over her face. "Yes, sir?"

"Might you be willing to join me in my office?"

"Er... okay."

Dumbledore peered at her. "Are you still suffering the effects of those berries? Should I take you to see Poppy?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Well, if you happen to change your mind..." Dumbledore glanced from side to side and put a friendly arm around her shoulders.

Sushi stiffened and glanced down (down!) at him out the corner of her eye. Dumbledore started guiding her towards his office (or she supposed it was towards his office - unless that was just some unusually creative euphemism). There was something... unsettling in the old man's eyes. I know they're supposed to twinkle, but is he supposed to keep glancing at my crotch?

"Was there something in particular you needed, Headmaster?" she asked as they reached a stone gargoyle.

"Violet Crumble. Nothing out of the ordinary, Severus, nothing out of the ordinary at all. Come!" He ushered Sushi through the hole in the wall behind the gargoyle. It snickered lasciviously. She glanced back, frowning.

The arm still around her shoulders wouldn't let her back against the wall as she normally would have. Despite her almost total inability to notice when someone was flirting with her, Dumbledore (whom she was pretty sure was supposed to be kindly, wise, and harmless) was throwing off Dirty Old Man vibes with immediately-post-nuclear intensity. Gingerly, she tried to shuffle off to the side.

Dumbledore arched an eyebrow. "Is anything wrong, Severus?"

Sushi shook her head frantically. "No, no, nothing at all." She had the impending feeling she was about to start babbling. "What do you think of... um... Puddlemere United's chances for the cup next year?" She gritted her teeth upon realizing she hadn't a clue what was going on in the world of Quidditch. A soft squeak exited her throat when it struck her this meant there was such thing as Quidditch.

"Er... I think you ought to have a lie-down." Dumbledore squinted at her suspiciously. He carefully withdrew his arm and took a hand between his instead.

Sushi stood ramrod-stiff all the way up the stairs. Dumbledore occasionally asked how she (well, he) was doing. She had the oddest suspicion Severus Snape wouldn't have answered with, "Er..." or even with a noncommittal, "Uh, okay." For the first time in many a year, she regretted dropping out of high school drama for the art department.

Soon enough, she found herself being pushed, gently but insistently, onto a large ottoman in front of the fireplace. "Um," she said intelligently as Dumbledore moved behind her with a whisper of robes, "shouldn't I go back to my room and re--oh, baby, right there." She slumped forward, jaw hanging slack as unexpectedly strong fingers rubbed tension from the middle of her back. (For, to reiterate should the situation ever arise, a Sushi's greatest weakness is the elusive Backrub.) "Ohh, god, I think I love you."

Dumbledore chuckled behind her. "Let's not spoil it, now, shall we? My, Severus, you've never been this responsive to a backrub before."

Sushi gurgled in response.

"I wonder how responsive you are to other things..."

Sushi moaned softly. One of those pesky little muscles between her shoulder blades had given up and turned to jelly.

And reverted straight back to stone when a pair of wizened hands reached around front and started fiddling with the buttons at her throat.

"Er..." she asserted.

"I know it's a bit unusual, Severus, but you know how seldom you let me take the initiative."

"Um..." she protested.

"And, quite frankly, I think you've been a naughty boy this time. I've heard how late you kept Mister Weasley after lessons last Friday. One might almost think something unseemly is going on." Dumbledore chuckled softly, hot breath tickling Sushi's ear.

"Ah..." she outright declared.

"My, aren't we eloquent today?" A thin hand slipped into the neck of the robes and began fiddling with the layers beneath. Sushi blinked and, torn between asking what the Hell was going on (in a rightfully shocked and revelatory tone) and hightailing it like a rabbit from a rattlesnake's hole, she for once took what was probably the wiser option.

"Uh... just remembered I left the kettle on, better go check that before it explodes." With more grace and speed than her real body had ever even attempted, she rose from the ottoman, nearly snapping off the headmaster's hand as it groped in the direction of cleavage that just wasn't there. "Sorry, sir, sorry, I'll just be going to check on that."

"You could simply as the house-elves to look. Severus? Severus!"

Sushi was pretty sure Dumbledore was going to say something else, but the door slammed behind her before it could come out. She tried to take off down the revolving staircase, but the next thing she knew she'd been thrown back to the top of the steps. "OW!"

Fidgeting madly, she rode the stairs down, hoping silently that she might get back to Snape's rooms and find out what the Hell was going on without too many people trying to jump her along the way.

Severus was in the middle of relating the previous night's detention at approximately nine words per minute when a loud jangling erupted behind his right ear. He jumped and yelped. The jangling came again, meshing all too well with his yelp of horror. Merlin, it sounds like the time Longbottom knocked over a stack of cauldrons!

The noise came again, deafening and brash, and he jerked his head around to see a long, black object sitting on the L-shaped desk. It yowled and he grabbed it to throw it across the room.

Its head came off.

Well, more specifically, its body broke apart in two pieces. However, for the interest of impact, we shall say its head came off.

Severus stared. He suspected he knew what it was, a "fellytone" or whatever in Hell the Muggles called them. He'd never touched one. The only picture he'd ever seen was radically different, upright with a cone-shaped mouthpiece and a larger cone held to the ear. However, if one were to take the basic concept and alter it, it would explain the low Cambridgeshire voice coming from the end without the cord hanging off it.

Er... Cambridgeshire?

Torn between apprehension at putting such an unknown object against his head and desperation to be back home, he smashed it against his cheek. There was a horrible series of beeps, and he hesitantly asked, "What?"

"Are you okay, hon?"

Severus groaned. Too late, he stifled it. Bloody bint's got a bloke! He didn't even pause to wonder what the fellow looked like. Taking a deep breath to keep from betraying his origins and slipping into a plethora of Yorkshire colloquialisms, he said, "Fine."

"Did I interrupt you?"

"Er... yes. Yes, you did."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed. "Well, can you take a couple of minutes out to chat?"

"Er... why?"

"Because I want to. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"You don't sound like yourself."

Severus gave a nervous little laugh. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why he could take the Dark Lord's come-ons and let them slide straight off his back, yet he was blustering in the face of a Muggle Floo connection. "I'm, um, busy. I'm writing."

"Working on the novel?"

"Er... novel?"

"You know, the novel you've been writing for three months now. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Perfectly. Perfectly fine. I'm, um... oh. Oh, no. The, um, cat. The cat is on fire. Better go."

"What's wrong with the kitten? Hon?"

"Kitten?" Severus roared. "That behemoth is not by any definition a kitten, unless you mean a saber-toothed one!"

"Hon--"

"In fact, the beast is staring at me right now!" he said as the cat jumped into a red canvas chair to his left and hunched down, ears laid back and eyes growing blacker by the moment. "Honestly, what do you people feed it, live cows?"

"Er, do I have the right number?"

"I should bloody well think so!" Severus, fuming looked at the cat again.

It wriggled its behind.

Severus swallowed. "Good puss."

Approximately half a second later, the cat was attached to his face.

"Hon? Are you there? Hon, say something."

"I'm here," Severus grumbled into a furry belly. The infernal beast only dug its claws deeper into his scalp, sank its teeth into his forehead, and slid off.

"What happened?"

"Nothing." Grabbing the cat before it could run away, he gave it a good smack on the tail. "This monster viciously attacked me."

"Aww..."

"No, not 'aww'! Ow, maybe! Er... it's looking at me again."

"She's only playing."

"She--what in Merlin's name--?"

"Have you been reading Harry Potter again?"

Severus sputtered. He very nearly shouted that he'd been doing nothing of the sort with the randy little catamite when he remembered that he was supposed to be a Muggle woman from somewhere in America. It was too late, though. The man went on.

"Do I need to come home?"

"No, no, you don't. Er... I can't hear you. Um, we're losing the connection."

"Hon?"

"Er... je ne parle pas anglais." Severus slammed down the receiver. He sat there, staring at it, wide-eyed and panting.

Hoisting himself out of the cavernous armchair with no small effort, he nearly hit the floor before racing towards the shower. He needed a few answers, and even more than that he needed to get home.

Sushi found her way down to the dungeon with the help of a very worried-looking little creature she supposed was a house-elf. It had found her in a corner, beset upon by Peeves, three suits of armor, and an underfed cat. Peeves kept throwing strawberries, which Sushi ducked most adamantly. She didn't much want to end up two ticks from death again that day.

The elf asked, as Sushi fiddled with the door, "Is there anything Noogy can be doing for you, Professor Snape?"

After the half-second in which she remembered she was, in fact, Severus Snape, she shook her head and stabbed at the door with Snape's wand. Sparks flew haphazardly. The house-elf squeaked and ran. Finally, after much swearing under her breath, the door flew open, apparently more out of annoyance than out of doing what it was told. Sushi arched an eyebrow and crept inside, keeping to the wall and jumping when the door closed with a snarl.

She hurried to the bathroom. It was nearly identical to the one at home. Apart from the fact that this one had green towels and rugs and seemed to be carved entirely from stone, of course. She gave a wistful little sigh and made headway for the shower.

"Think, think," she muttered under her breath. "Washed face, found soap, radio went out, hit radio, felt weird..."

She wrenched back the shower curtain and yelped when the saw the Tune-A-Fish attached to the wall. She yelped again when a burst of static came through and she heard her own voice calling, "Hello? Oh, for Merlin's sake. This is Professor Severus Snape of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am trapped in the body of a Muggle--"

"Trapped In The Body Of A White Girl?" Sushi grinned guiltily.

"Er... pallid and ugly, but yes."

"Sorry, bad Julie Brown joke."

There was a sigh. "I know my own voice, you realize. Who are you, what are you doing, and will you bloody well relinquish control of my body before I am forced to do something drastic to what I presume is yours?"

"Uh... I haven't a fucking clue what's going on here. I'd kinda hoped you would."

"Oh, for..." there was a steady, rhythmic thump, as though a rock-hard skull were pounding against the tiles.

"Can I come home now, please? I miss my kitten."

The receiver sputtered. "Your... that beast is not a kitten! As I have already explained to the fellow on the fellytone, that monster--"

"Uh... you're answering my phone?"

"Yes. And reading the lies you've been spreading about me. I have never--"

"You found my fics?" Sushi bounced on her toes. "Was I close? At all? Ooh..."

"Actually," came the dry response, "no. I have never been buggered by the Dark Lord despite his repeated attempts at seduction, Lucius Malfoy and I have no relationship beyond the occasional slap and tickle, and I haven't the foggiest notion where you got the idea that I might be from India. I'm from Ripon, dammit!"

Sushi giggled into her hands at the words coming out in her voice. Still giggling, she said, "Cool. I used to know someone from Ripon. Well, sort of. I mean, he was a friend of someone I know--"

"Are you daft, or have you suffered some gratuitous head injury while I've vacated the premises?"

Sushi blinked. "Probably daft."

"Oh, brilliant. Dare I ask in what sort of shambles my lessons are?"

"Er... Draco made a pass at me."

Silence. After a long moment, a wary reply came. "What did you do?"

"Er... freaked and ran?"

"Oh, for... brilliant. Utterly fucking brilliant. Forget my lessons, my reputation is going to be in a shambles! Bloody Hell, I'm going to have to give in on that threesome with Lucius for this."

"Ooh. I know people who'd pay to see that."

"Ah... how many of you people are there?"

"Come to think," Sushi said thoughtfully, "I wouldn't mind seeing that." She sighed wistfully.

"I forbid you to rent out my body for the purposes of carnal displays," came the snarling voice.

Sushi blinked. Her eyes went maniacally wide. "Hey... you know, I could probably make a small mint on the tapes--"

"I have a cat, and I'm not afraid to use it. Good puss, nice claws."

Sushi yelped. "You wouldn't!"

"I would."

"I won't do it!"

There was a plop, and a "mmrew", and a scuffle as a fuzzy set of paws jumped out of the bathtub. "Now," the Snape-in-her-body said calmly, "what other atrocities have you committed with my corpus?"

"Er... I had some strawberries."

There was a weary sigh. "Fucking Hell. Poppy's never going to let me live this down."

"What? They were all I could eat. Everything else was swimming in meat."

"What did you say?"

"I'm vegetarian. I'm allergic to meat. And milk. And eggs. You didn't eat any, did you?"

The smiling fish groaned. "Not in the end."

"Oh, good. Last time I had any meat, I spent the night worshipping the porcelain god."

"I'd never have guessed," Snape replied dryly. It still sounded bizarre in her voice.

Sushi sighed. "Can I come home now?"

"I don't know. Can you get home?"

"How the Hell should I know?"

Snape-Sushi sighed on the other end of the connection. "You sound like Potter during his tutoring sessions."

"Um... I looked at his grades. If he's being tutored, he's not learning very--are you shagging Harry Potter?"

"Not that it's any of your business, yes. The little brat--"

"OH, YES, I WAS RIGHT!" She whooped, throwing her arms over her head in the universal "GOAL!" pose. She knew she was grinning like a moron, but didn't care. "This is so groovy!"

"I'll thank you not to get any ideas! If they're anything like what you've had before, they'll be semi-literate cack with all the accuracy of a penguin shot from a longbow."

"That's not very nice."

"Neither am I," the fish growled.

Sushi snorted and folded her arms. "Draco seemed to think you--" a sudden, flaying pain in her left arm made her eyes cross and stopped her cold. "Ow..."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, what have you done to my body now?"

"Not me. Arm hurts."

There was dead silence from the radio. Sushi pushed her sleeves up, only to see the Dark Mark burning black against sallow skin.

"Uh-oh," she said quietly.

"I forbid you to go," Snape said firmly. "I've spent years cultivating my standing with the Dark Lord and I refuse to have it ruined by a Muggle."

"So... this thing going off means that I really will get to meet Lord Voldemort."

"No, it means that you will remain quietly in my rooms--excuse me? I know the sound of footsteps! GET BACK HERE! Oh, bloody Hell...!"

Her voice trailed off as Sushi pounded out of the bathroom, wrenched open the wardrobe, and started throwing clothes left and right in search of a mask, the biggest grin she was capable of plastered across her face.

Severus slid to the floor of the bathtub, back pressed against the cold tiles. He stared at the wall, glazed and numb. Several minutes later, the cat came in, sat on the rug, and gazed up at him quizzically.

"Oh, fuck," he muttered. "My body. She's going to die along with my body." He sighed, looking at the cat. "It appears I'm stuck with you forever now."

The cat purred.

There was one slight hitch.

She didn't have clue one of how to Apparate.

Grumbling to herself, arm throbbing, mask and cloak firmly in place, she sat in the Forbidden Forest in broad daylight, flipping Snape's wand back and forth. It kept firing sparks. One especially large cluster flew out with a bang, and suddenly a pile of dry leaves went up in smoke. She yelled, flung out her arm to smack the flames, and the next thing she knew they'd been smashed by the tires of an enormous purple double-decker bus.

"Er..." she declared in triumph.

The door flew open, ejecting a pimply man perhaps a few years older than her real body. He hopped down, holding a stool and grinning. He held out a hand, said, "Need a--" and promptly screamed like a girl when he got a look at her.

Sushi pushed herself to her feet. Brushing past his quivering form, she said, "Yeah, thanks."

The old man at the wheel was quaking. His eyes were huge behind thick lenses, and a ring of white showed around his irises. Sushi nodded to him. "Um... I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be. Think it's outside... Brighton? That's a real place, isn't it?" The Mark seemed to be putting ideas in her head.

The man nodded slowly. Whimpering softly, he put the bus in gear. Sushi suddenly remembered that the Knight Bus required money. She said, as whom she presumed was Stan Shunpike crawled back onto the bus and hid under a bed, "Uh... could I pay you later? I don't think I've got any--"

"On the 'ouse," the old man - Ernie? - said.

Sushi grinned behind her mask. "Thanks." She plopped down next to an old woman who stared at her with a horrified expression. Sushi nodded. "Hi."

The woman merely clutched her bag more tightly to her chest.

The bus lurched and took off with a bang. Sushi watched the scenery whiz by, houses suddenly sliding sideways and trees jumping away in a flash. She thought she heard something like a Hail Mary coming from under Stan's bed, but she'd never before heard it as "Hail, Merlin".

Within minutes - she suspected they'd been speeding, as a few of the trees they'd passed had lost a limb in their languor - the bus jerked to a halt. "Outside Brighton," Ernie said in a reedy voice. "Er... your friends're 'ere."

Sure enough, several Death Eaters, cloaked and masked, stood in a small clearing. They stared. Sushi almost expected to see their masks fall open at the mouth. She nodded at Ernie again. "Thank you!"

"Anytime," he said weakly as she hopped off, waved, and was nearly flattened when the bus took off at top speed.

Now, while Sushi's fascination with the Dark Lord has been proclaimed far and wide, what is less commonly known is that the Death Eaters frighten her immensely. It is for this reason that she inched forward carefully, not entirely sure what to do if something happened. She'd come to realize earlier in the day that her magical training was nil; it was all too apparent when a fifth year Hufflepuff knocked over his cauldron in the middle of the morning and she'd only stood, staring dumbly, as the potion slowly ate a large hole in the floor. (Granger had corrected it next class period, thus earning fifty points for Gryffindor. Sushi had earned a plethora of most worried looks.)

"Er... hi, guys," she said.

Most of them simply stared. Finally, though, one piped up. "Severus, what in Hell are you doing?"

"Um... strawberries at breakfast?"

"Oh," the Death Eater said. The others gave a general murmur of acquiescence. "That's all right, then."

She nodded. "Thanks, Lucius."

"Walden."

"Walden."

Macnair (at least, she thought it was Macnair) threw an arm around her shoulders. He walked her deeper into the surrounding woods. Sushi tried to inch away, the incident with Dumbledore still fresh on her mind.

"Have you given any more thought to my idea?" Macnair whispered.

"What idea?"

Macnair chuckled. "You're so hard to get, Sev. You know, us, a bottle of champagne, a few hundred roses, some music, some dancing, dinner..." he tossed his head in a most coy way.

Sushi squinted suspiciously. "And then what?"

Macnair sniffed. "You know perfectly well I'm more interested in what's in your head than in your pants, Severus."

"Is that some kind of euphemism?"

"Of course not. Come on, what do you say?"

"Er..." Sushi pointed ahead. "I think you'd better ask him."

A tall, pallid figure stood in the middle of the clearing, glaring directly at Walden. Walden yelped, yanked his arm away, and scuttled forward to bow at his feet. "My Lord! I was only--"

"I know perfectly well what you were doing, Walden. This is a meeting, not a singles club."

"Yes, My Lord. Thank you, My Lord." Macnair kissed the hem of Voldemort's robe, hurried backwards, and took his place in the circle. Sushi hesitantly started forward to do the same thing. Lord Voldemort fluttered his eyes at her. At least, she was pretty sure he'd fluttered his eyes. He might have just had something under a contact.

It was a bit surprising, when she got close enough, to smell a faint, spicy cologne. It was a bit like sandalwood, and purely innocently she leaned forward to sniff. The collected Death Eaters groaned. Voldemort made a sound in his throat and they stopped. Sushi thought she detected the passing of money, though, the golden glint of coins in the sunlight as they moved from hand to hand.

"Ah, ah, ah," the Dark Lord purred under his breath. He moved his head shyly out of reach. "Later."

"Er... okay." Sushi started to kneel in front of him. A pale, spidery hand shot out and stopped her.

"Later, Severus."

Sushi decided it would be in her best interest not to argue, and scurried towards the ring of hooded figures.

The meeting started more or less immediately. Her brain started wandering about two seconds later. Between the close proximity of one of the creepiest groups she could imagine, and Voldemort himself, she wasn't in the mood to concentrate on much of anything.

Except maybe the way Voldemort's high, soft voice slid through words like a snake. She blinked rapidly a few times. His red eyes darted over, and she thought she heard a chuckle.

Of course, they were actually rather nice eyes, a little bit soft and sad, even if he looked like he needed Visine and reconstructive surgery. Not that Sushi had any problems with red eyes and slit pupils. Even his lack of lips wasn't that noticeable. It was almost... well, cute, in a reptilian sort of way. And he walked smoothly, gracefully. She found herself straining to watch his butt after he'd turned his back. The Death Eater next to her cursed softly, and handed a handful of coins surreptitiously to the person on his other side.

In fact, Sushi got so caught up in letting her mind follow him around (not to mention wondering, based on the fact he had neither eyebrows nor eyelashes, if he was bald all over) that she didn't actually notice when the Death Eaters broke rank. A few of them wandered towards a nearby oak and passed around a pack of cigarettes.

"Severus," came a high, soft, serpentine voice.

Sushi had the vague notion that she'd very much like to be Severus, whoever that was.

"Severus? Have you gone deaf?" Fingers touched the underside of Sushi's chin. She found herself gazing idiotically into those red, fathomless eyes.

"What?" she asked in her silver-tongued way.

Voldemort chuckled. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders (when did I get tall?), he led her, still gazing stupidly at him, towards a small clump of trees. The amassed Death Eaters watched with that "it had to happen sometime" slump to their shoulders. The jingle of a few more Galleons passed lightly through the air.

When they were out of obvious sight of anyone who might have been trying to spy (backed up by a few choice fireballs from Voldemort's wand, and three separate screams from the underbrush), the Dark Lord glanced coyly back over his shoulder with wand still in hand. Fluttering his eyes, he said, "I noticed the way you've been watching me, Severus."

"I have?" Sushi had been too busy watching him to notice.

Voldemort flicked a nonexistent eyebrow, but chuckled. "Oh, so you've gone from playing hard to get to playing dumb, then? I know your little game. But I also know when someone's finally given in."

"Uh-huh," Sushi snapped wittily.

Voldemort grinned. It was sly, subtle, showing just the narrowest line of straight, white teeth. The way his eyes crinkled up when he did was simply adorable, and before he looked away she could have sworn he'd blushed. "Tell me, Severus, have you got anything to do tonight? Perhaps around eight o'clock?"

"Don't think so." Sushi stared at his butt, outlined ever so temptingly through his robes. Apparently, the Dark Lord walked more than he Apparated, or had gotten a good deal on a Stairmaster.

"Then would you care to join me for dinner? I'd be most appreciative." Voldemort was suddenly in front of her. One long, white finger traced her pointed cheekbone (odd, since she normally resembled a hamster with a mouth full of pellets). He was gazing into her eyes, nearly level (also odd, since he'd towered over most of the Death Eaters; she didn't think they were Hobbits). Those narrow, slit pupils widened, and a little flutter went through her chest.

"Okay."

The smile that lit the Dark Lord's face was enough to make her dizzy. She stared, lightheaded and a little slack-jawed, as he gave a low, sweeping bow, took her long, sallow hand, and lifted it to his mouth. "Ce soir, mon amour."

"Okay."

The Dark Lord chuckled, a low sound like warm butter, touched her cheek once more, and left the clump of trees with a coy, almost shy backward glance. Sushi watched him, eyes stuck on his butt, on the way his narrow shoulders twisted when he glanced back, on the soft shadow of promise in his eyes. Only when he'd gone and she remembered that her legs did move did she actually stagger out of the trees.

Rubbing his nose, Snape growled at the damned picture box apparently attached to the computing machine. "Fucking cat," he muttered. The beast, in an apparent attempt to butter him up, had hopped into the bath where he sat in catatonia. It purred. It snuggled. It licked his chin raw. And then it promptly sank its teeth into his nostrils.

Out of sheer spite, he'd returned to the place where this strange person's life apparently centred. There had to be some way of reducing it to a shambles. Moving the lump of plastic so the little arrow ran over tiny pictures at the bottom of the screen, he eventually brought up something called "Eudora".

He'd found the prize.

Hundreds - nay, thousands - of artificial owl notes from people who clamored for the juicier details of his sex life cluttered the screen before his eyes. (His host body, it seemed, was named Sushi, a ridiculous moniker he would have to change should he be permanently trapped.) Despite the searing pain in his nose, he grinned. After all, there's nothing more wickedly satisfying than seeing people get what they want.

The list of words at the top of the screen was different than the one in that "Word" thing. The most obvious, for what he wanted, seemed to be "Message". He clicked it, and was mildly annoyed when rather than a blank box he found a new menu. Soon enough, though, he managed to get a blank.

We shan't bore our readers with the details of the next twenty minutes, which includes a great deal of swearing, rather a few misdirected emails bearing gibberish, and, miraculously, no Blue Screens of Death. It does, however, include a great deal of cutting and pasting (and mis-cutting, and mis-pasting), and a slew of mails sent to such people as Sushi's mother. Sushi's very conservative, very straight-laced mother who has never read (or considered reading) slash in her life. She would pitch a fit should she know what her daughter does with her spare time. Not that Snape knew this, but the address came up in the window and he left it there.

Severus was rather proud of himself, on the whole. Teach the bint to fuck about with my body. He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and grinned.

Evilly.

After all, one good screwing deserved another.

Sushi bounced off the Knight Bus into the Forbidden Forest where she'd been picked up. She waved happily at Stan and Ernie, who stared back with looks of utter horror. Ernie slammed down on the accelerator before Stan had even shut the door, and Sushi was drenched in mud and leaves. She'd gotten the feeling they hadn't been too impressed with her giggling or bouncing or kicking of feet. Then again, it wasn't every day she had a date with the Dark Lord.

Or Snape did. Whichever.

Trotting back towards the school, she checked her watch. Despite the fact it did, in fact, bear the Slytherin banner, it wasn't there. "Dammit." It had to be getting late, after three at least. She realized suddenly that she'd not even thought for hours what was going on with her real body. (She also realized suddenly that it seemed a bit strange for there to have been a Death Eater meeting in broad daylight, but at least it got her out of teaching.) From the corner of her eye, she saw a long, white beard and a shocking purple robe. She squeaked.

Before Dumbledore could spot the lone, dark figure in the woods, she'd hightailed it the other way. There was just something a bit... creepy... about being hit on by Albus Dumbledore, especially when the great and terrible Lord Voldemort had been so much more chivalrous about it. She stuffed her mask in her robe, darted in through a back door, found herself in the kitchen, and several minutes later staggered out the painting with a chocolate éclair sticking from her mouth. She moaned softly, letting the chocolate ooze over her tongue, something that would have sent her real body to the emergency room.

Unfortunately, the lure of chocolate was heady. She didn't notice, through her cocoa-fogged eyes, the dark-haired boy coming 'round the corner. Well, she did once they'd gone sprawling. She yelped, hiding her face in the first organic object she could find. It turned out to be the boy's chest.

"Where've you been, Professor? Weren't you going to see me this afternoon?" The voice was puzzled, mostly adult, and quickly changed to amusement. "At least you got your éclair off."

"Hwa?" she said, a little confused. The remains of the éclair had muffled her "What?" She pulled back, squeaking and trying to wipe some of the cream filling off the boy's face and glasses. And scar. His lightning bolt scar. Oh, boy. From the corner of her eye she spotted a mirror; in one sharp glance she was treated (and surreally mentally warped) by the sight of Severus Snape stretched out most suggestively on top of Harry Potter. "Meep."

"I thought you liked it on top, Professor," Harry murmured deep in his throat. He lifted his head just enough to breathe in a sallow ear slowly turning red, "Is that a Death Eater mask in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

"Um... it's a Death Eater mask."

Harry pulled back, frowning. "I thought..."

"Strawberries."

"Oh." His face lit up with understanding. "Okay, that's different." He wriggled out from underneath her, Sushi still being too stunned to move, and fished out his wand to mutter something. The cream vanished. Unfortunately, so did the rest of the éclair. Before Sushi could whimper at the loss of the first chocolate she'd tasted in years, he held out a hand. "How 'bout we go back to your place, Professor?"

Sushi bit her lip. "Ah... Madam Pomfrey said, um..."

Harry's face fell. "Oh." He let his hand drop, slid it into his pocket. From beneath long eyelashes, he glanced at her. "So... reckon I'll be going, then." He shrugged a little, started to shuffle off.

Now, the problem here was quite complex. No matter whose body she was in, Sushi was just the tiniest bit uncomfortable with using it to achieve her own selfish means (Voldemort not withstanding - for Snape to have been shunning him for however long was a crime). However, Harry actually looked hurt, which none of the others had done. Additionally, there was a mirror right there. That sort of image could fuel perverted dreams for months.

Anyway, Snape himself had said they'd been doing it. Might as well get some use out of his corpus.

"Potter," she said shortly, getting to her feet.

"Yes, sir?" He glanced back hopefully.

Hesitantly, confidence draining into a puddle at her feet, she reached out, grabbed his robe, and looked in the mirror just in time to see Professor Snape snog Harry Potter for all he was worth. Harry made a muffled little sound, but seemed to get the hang of it quickly enough. It broke before he seemed quite ready to let go. Harry blinked up at her with dilated green eyes several shades more brilliant than her real ones. He blinked several times.

"Severus?" he asked. His fingers had clamped down on Sushi's robe.

She blinked at him. "Tomorrow afternoon, then?"

Harry nodded dumbly. His jaw had gone a bit slack. Sushi had the biting feeling he didn't quite share Snape's self-serving apathy for the relationship. She nodded curtly, and swept away before she could sit down and attempt to have a healthy round of girl talk. This was a good thing, not only for Snape's reputation as terrormonger, but for Harry's psyche. All things told, Sushi's skills at girl talk began and ended with, "Well, we upgraded to the AMD motherboard and the Athlon chip..."

Snape, however, was going to hear about this.

Hurrying to Snape's rooms (getting lost a few times along the way - Sir Cadogan made sure of that), Sushi started to draw Snape's wand from her pocket. The door swung open and hit the wall with a bang. She squeaked. She scurried inside, and it slammed shut with even more force, rattling a couple of bottles off a shelf. It waited, hissing. Sushi glanced at it, once, and tore into the bathroom at top speed. She slapped the side of the radio. "Hello?"

Nothing but static. She thought she heard the kitten meowing.

Sushi sighed. If she couldn't get back, she didn't know what she'd do without her kitten. Or, even more, her hubby. A few pangs of guilt swirled up at so blatantly making eyes at Voldemort. (On the whole, though, he was the Dark Lord, and her hubby couldn't begrudge her that. Anyway, he'd probably just roll his eyes and tell her to have fun, which was quite a pleasant thought in itself, but just to be sure she'd want confirmation, which would mean getting home, mentioning it, then getting back, at which point she wouldn't be in her own body even though she doubted Snape would willingly relinquish his again. Anyway, Voldemort seemed quite smitten with Snape. And while it's one thing to drool over somebody from a distance, the reality of the situation can be a bit, erm, real. Was that complicated enough?)

A bit of panic rising in her borrowed chest, she smacked the Tune-A-Fish once more with a fluttery hand. "Hello? My name's Sushi. I want to come home now, please."

There was a bang, and a loud string of cursing, and footsteps, and suddenly she heard herself screeching, "WHERE IN HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?"

"Er... outside Brighton?"

"What were you doing outside Brighton?"

"Uh... hitting on the Dark Lord?"

There was dead silence, and a low mutter that sounded a lot like, "Brilliant. Utterly fucking brilliant."

"Hello? Can I have my body back?"

"Why? What have you done to mine?"

"Since breakfast?"

"Yes..."

"Nothing."

There was a pause. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Sorry."

"Fortunately, your pet tiger has done my damage for me," came the sullen reply. "Haven't you got any antiseptic in this place?"

"Try the Ever Clear in the kitchen. It'll kill anything."

"I'll pass, thanks."

Sushi sighed. "Look, I need to get home."

"Well, aren't you special?"

"Does that mean you don't want to give me my body back?"

"Nothing of the sort! Daft little bint. Haven't you any idea how much I would give for this never to have happened?"

"Actually," she snapped, "I do. What time is it, anyway?"

"Four fifty-seven."

"Holy fuck. I need to get home!"

A snort came from the fish. "You're perfectly welcome to try."

"Would you stop being a twit and think? And you need to be nicer to Harry Potter. He likes you, and all you're doing is using him for a sex toy."

"For your information, I'm not, but I shan't give you the sordid details because, quite frankly, you don't deserve them."

"Oh? And what if I'm stuck in your body for good?"

"You'd bloody well better not be! That's my Har--that's my business!"

"Then you'd better think of something and get this mess straightened out!" She smacked the fish.

"Don't hit me." An echoing smack came through the speaker. "See how you like it, you insufferable little cow."

"Don't call me a little cow! I know what you mean! My husband's English!" She smacked it again, twice.

"Then stop being one!" The echoing smack repeated, this time thrice.

"Hey! Quit it!" She glanced around, grabbed a mostly-full bottle of shampoo. "I've got shampoo, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Snape gasped. "You wouldn't dare."

Sushi unscrewed the bottle and held it over her head. "Just watch me."

"I can't watch you! This is a wireless!"

"Well, I can tell you what's going on! Oh, that's cold!" She grinned, letting the stuff ooze all over Snape's hair. "Oh, it's smells like coconut! Lot in a bottle, isn't there?"

"Oh, you... I'll pagga your yoks, you empty-skulled bint!" screeched an eerie imitation of an irate Yorkshireman. The smacking came frantically, wickedly, wildly, as though Snape were trying to beat through the plastic fish and come out the other side. Sushi giggled and joined in, ignoring the nauseating drip of shampoo down her neck. The bottle empty, she dropped it and started walloping with both hands.

Sometimes, in moments of great stress, strange things happen. Anger can lead to not only destruction, but to the righting of a wrong. Or, more likely, it woke some sleeping universal constant, which said the universal equivalent of, "Oops," and regretted ever eating that third burrito.

There was a momentary wash of dizziness and, quite suddenly, the hands Sushi was using to slap the fish were stubby and pale, and the granite was replaced by tile. She stopped, jerked, looked around. "Huh?"

The fish hissed static. The kitten, sitting on the rug, said, "Mraow?"

Sushi's eyes darted from side to side. Timidly, she flung back her cape, pushed up her sleeve, and pinched her elbow in that little spot that always hurt like the dickens. "Yip!"

Much to her amazement, nothing changed.

"Oh. Crap," she muttered to herself. Gingerly stepping out of the bathtub, she picked up the kitten (groaning under the tiny little thing's weight) and timidly started looking through the apartment. Nothing seemed out of order. There was a bit of chicken on the counter, which she hadn't remembered leaving out, and the mayonnaise was open. She let the squirming ball of fluff go and put the jar back in the fridge.

A few minutes later, she'd found nothing obviously out of place (except her contacts, which she assumed were in their case as she had her glasses on). Waiting for the other shoe, she eased herself into her computer chair and, purely out of habit, checked her email. There were several downloaded already. With a faint sense of dread, she opened the first of many. And stared.

"Uh, Sushi? Were you hacked?"

"Did your shift key break?"

"Snape is not that much of a slut! Three Weasley brothers at once, then Harry that night? This is so lame!"

"This is the Snape/Lupin list, not the Snape/Lupin/Black/Weasley/Potter/Pettigrew/Hagrid/Flitwick list. My god, poor little Flitwick!"

She blinked rapidly. Hastily scrolling back, she found several list copies of an email, apparently from her, with "the truth about severus snape" in the topic bar. "Uh-oh." Slightly queasy, she opened it and read.

once there was a man named severus snape. he was a manly man, broad of chest and hung like a bull. his conquests were wide and scattered. they ranged from the great and powerful albus dumbledore to harry potter, the boy who lived to be shagged. one day, snape went to the headmaster's office. 'severus,' said the headmaster, 'i've been a naughty boy. would you punish me/' severus took off his belt and

Sushi hid her face in her hand and groaned. She peeked out from between two fingers and read the rest of it. She grew paler and paler and, despite the laws of physiology and physics, paler.

Fifteen minutes later, near tears and whimpering, she started typing out the first of many apologies. Specifically, the one to her mother. Somehow, that "were you hacked?" idea sounded like a pretty damned good one...

Severus sat in his office, glaring. His fingers were laced in front of his mouth, and his thoughts had long since turned to the other shoe. While everyone at Hogwarts had accepted the strawberries as his reason for acting so oddly, he couldn't help but wonder what other damage had been done. With a sigh, he decided to find Harry, drag him to the dungeons, and have a good, long cuddle and a cry.

He'd just pushed himself to his feet when there was a knock at the door. "Er, Severus?" came Albus' uneasy voice. "I, ah, need to speak with you."

Snape sighed. "Just a moment, Headmaster." He growled under his breath. As much fun as Albus was, this just wasn't the time. He flung the door open, and froze.

Behind the headmaster stood Lord Voldemort, wearing a neatly pressed, exceedingly old-fashioned dress robe and holding a dozen roses. He grinned at Snape. Snape stared. Oh, no. Oh, please, Merlin, god, any god, don't tell me she...

"Severus?" Albus said, glancing warily back at the unusually dapper Dark Lord. "Your date is here."

THE END

(Special thanks to my hubby who doesn't mind if I run off with Lord Voldemort for a weekend. Ah, the things that come out of my mouth following the phrase, "Hypothetical question".)