Severus turned toward the voice and smiled up at Harry. The older boy smiled back, but something lurked in the green eyes that suggested everything was not well. "Hi. What's up?" he asked, sounding casual. Matty had no reason to be anxious. Well, aside from his dead parents, but neither Severus nor Matty were eager to consider that too closely.

"I got McGonagall to give me permission to give you a tour."

"Cool," Severus tried to sound excited rather than worried. What was Harry up to? Potter's son knew Severus already knew his way around. "When?"

True amusement flickered in eyes so much like Lily's, and Severus startled. Merlin, if you looked at him right, Harry looked as much like his mother as he did his father. Severus shook off the thought and focused on the other's words. "No time like the present," Harry remarked faceteously.

Severus flinched, still sensitive about his place in time. Harry's eyes widened in alarm and self-recrimination as he realized the effect his words had on his younger friend. "I didn't mean it like that!"

Severus grinned weakly, "It's true, though." Then, not wanting to talk about time - past, present, or future - now, in the middle of the Gryffindor common room, he redirected the conversation. "You were saying something about a tour?"

Harry grabbed the distraction as eagerly as Severus. "Right! The castle's larger than Beauxbatons, so Professor McGonagall thought it might help if I pointed out the best way to get to your classes."

Severus shrugged. "Sure. but you need to show me the fun spots, too."

"Deal," Harry grinned.

"Harry!" Both boys turned toward the red-head who had called out. The same bushy-haired brunette from breakfast followed close beside him. The two joined them, and Harry smiled warmly. "You're going to introduce us to your 'little brother', right?" the red-head grinned.

"yeah, I was just going to take him on a tour, want to come along?" Harry invited.

Severus quashed a feeling of disappointment. Harry Potter was a fifth year. He had fifth year friends. Silly of him to expect the older boy to become his own best friend and drop his old ones. And yet he had hoped he would at least have Harry's undivided attention during the tour. Hadn't that been the purpose behind it, after all?

"Matty, this is Ron," Harry introduced the red-head, "and this is Hermione." The girl. Severus gave her a shallow bow. He breifly considered kissing her hand, but decided against it. She wasn't exactly his equal, being three years his senior.

Hermione laughed delightedly. "Isn't he sweet." Severus was glad he had forgone the kiss. She would've been more delighted by that than she was by the bow. And 'sweet' wasn't exactly what he wanted to be known for.

Harry laughed. "You have no idea." Severus tried to stifle his own snort, but was sure his eyes must have given him away. "Hermione, Ron, this is Matty Groves."

Severus extended a hand and shook with first Ron, then Hermione. His mother wasn't big on shaking girls' hands, but it seemed common in this time. As he did that perfunctory bit of ettiquette, he added, in regard to his name, "My father had a cruel sense of humour." He paled and his eyes widened at the inadvertant use of past tense. He wondered if his fake freckles stood out in relief against his suddenly cold and white skin.

Hermione, bless her, was quick enough on the uptake to realized he desperately needed something else to think about. "So you're from Beauxbatons?"

With that assistance, he was able to fight back the impending panic attack. They were coming more and more frequently lately, now that he was getting used to everything else in this time. "Yeah. I didn't speak French all that well before going there, but you learn fast if you need to."

Hermione cocked her head curiously. "Why Beauxbatons, if you are English?"

Severus shrugged dismissively. "Great Uncle Albus said He was stirring again, so Mum thought Beauxbatons woul be safer. Hogwarts has target written all over it, what with Great Uncle Albus and the great Harry Potter in attedance." He shot an impudent grin at Harry.

Harry punched him in the arm, which was really a much milder retaliation that he was expecting. Severus grinned up at him. "Didn't Great Uncle Albus tell you not the beat me up?"

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "'Great Uncle Albus' told me not to let anybody else beat you up. He didn't say a thing about what I could or couldn't do."

Severus snapped his fingers in the classic 'oh, darn' gesture. "Must've misheard him then. Coulda sworn he said not to let the older kids beat me up. You're an older kid."

Ron interrupted here, with a frown. "It's not an older kid that's the biggest problem," he said darkly.

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Did you hear what Snape said during your Sorting?" The red-head sounded outraged.

Harry cleared his throat, uncomfortably. "That's sort of what I wanted to discuss on the tour. Let's go."

The four filed from the room, greeting the fat lady pleasantly, as she closed behind them. "We'll start with the Astronomy tower," Harry said in a passable imitation of a tour guide. The four began the trek, quickly leaving all witnesses behind them. This corridor was notoriously deserted this time of day. No classes to bring up innocent students, and not dark enough to bring in the couples yet.

When they reached a reasonably private stretch, namely, completely deserted, Harry looked seriously at Severus. "It's your story, Matty. We can send Ron and Hermione back if you want to keep it between us. But they can be a lot of help if you let them I wouldn't have survived my first year without them."

Severus looked at the other two fifth years flanking him. "They won't freak out?"

"I told the Headmaster I wouldn't let the older kids bother you. That includes Ron. Hermione won't freak out."

Severus laughed nervously. "So Ron will?"

"Hey! I'm right here, guys!" Ron protested.

Harry completely ignored him. "Initially. He'll come around though. He always does." Severus noticed Hermione giving him a curious look, and Ron shooting Harry an irritated mock-glare.

Severus sighed. "You've gone and made them suspicious now," he complained, but understood that these were Harry's best friends. He wouldn't have wanted to keep secrets from Evan Rosier, his own best friend, and he'd only known Evan for just over a year. "They can stay," he capitulated, knowing that if Harry trusted them, they were probably all right. At Harry's wide grin, he narrowed his eyes in fake distrust. "You're sure you're not in Slytherin?"

Harry shrugged, "Sorting hat confirmed its decision in my second year."

"Sorting hat is indecisive. Look where it put me this time around. Only thing worse would be if it put me in Hufflepuff. Can you imagine what Father would say if he knew? Me? In Gryffindor?"

Harry grinned. "Yeah. How did the hat justify that?"

"Said I was a reckless hero," Severus complained in his best iinjured voice.

Harry started to laugh. "Have to admit, Sev," he wheezed, after a few moments, "it's got a point. You're worse than I am."

Severus turned up his nose. "Should hope so, you Gryffindor."

"Look who's talking. You need a new insult. At least trouble finds me accidently."

Severus shot him a sharp look. "Accidently? That's not what - oh. Slytherins. Right. Of course they're gonna put you in a bad light."

"Hold on. Wait a moment. Harry. Matty." Severus jumped. Not a good thing to loose track of witnesses during this kind of conversation. "What is going on?" Hermione demanded to know.

Harry and Severus exchanged glances, fighting out who had to explain. Severus cleared his throat and looked between the two fifth years whom he barely knew. "You have to promise not to tell anyone. Only me, the Headmaster, and Auror Fletcher know about this. And Harry, of course." He looked around the abandoned corridor again, as much as a delaying tactic as to make sure they weren't being spied on. "Swear to Merlin this does not go beyond us, and you won't treat me any different that you would if you didn't know. My life depends on it." Since when had he started entrusting his life to Gryffindors anyway?

But the two older students nodded with all seriousness due the situation, which was strangely reassuring. "Swear to Merlin," they chorused solemnly. Honestly, he'd been in Gryffindor for less than five hours, and already he was blythly trusting people with dangerous secrets that could mean his death.

Actually, that had happened with Harry even before getting made a Gryffindor, so perhaps the Hat hadn't been so wrong after all. He sighed. "My name's not really Matty Groves," he whispered. He wasn't sure if the drop in volume was melodrama or a serious attempt to keep this confidential. "The Headmaster is no more my Great Uncle than he is Harry's." He paused breifly to study their expressions. No exclamations of disgust and disbelief yet. It was safe to continue. "I'm not even a third year. I skipped a level to add another degree of seperation. Because if anyone figures out I'm not who I say I am, I'm toast." He wondered if that last sentance could be circularly reasoned to mean his name was toast, but dismissed the thought without trying to analyze the problem.

"And you call Gryffindors dangerously reckless," Harry mumbled.

Severus gave him a tight smirk. "Well, they are, aren't they? I start this and look where I end up!" He gestured to his Gryffindor badge with disgust.

"You're Slytherin," Hermione declared, her eyes narrowing in calculation. Severus waited, and wasn't disappointed when she reached her conclusion. "You're Snape."

"Twenty points to Gryffindor," Severus drawled, "What gave it away? Harry calling me Sev or all the Gryffindor insults?"

Ron snorted, as Harry opened his mouth to protest the accusation, then closed it in uncertainty. "Now we know that can't be right," Ron announced. At Severus's raised brows the red-head explained, "Snape would never give points to Gryffindor."

Severus shrugged. "Professor Snape, perhaps not. I wouldn't know. I never met him."

"'His physical condition and his amnesion,'" Hermione quoted in a voice that could only be described as know-it-all, "You don't remember growing up at all, do you?"

Severus regarded her, feeling like he had just been accused of something. "I remember buying my first wand. My father considered that to be giant step in growing up," he told her, somewhat more defensively than he meant to.

"But you don't remember graduating," she more told him than asked him.

He shook his head. "Anything after second year was lost. Well, until after the time reversal potion about a week ago. And that I wish I didn't remember."

Ron frowned. For someone who was expected to freak out, he was taking this amazingly well. "So if Matty is really Snape, then who's Snape?"

"Me," Severus answered simply. He would have brought up the time turner, but Harry spoke before he could.

"About that. I think you're overdoing it."

Severus frowned. "Overdoing it? But he's a nasty Death Eater now. He's supposed to be evil."

"But he wasn't two days ago," Harry pointed out. "The change was too quick."

Severus bit his lip and considered this bit of criticism on his portrayal of Severus. "He was acting two days ago. Now he's been discovered, and is bitter and angry about it," Severus rationalized, though he silently admitted to himself that Harry probably did have a point. "It's not even totally fake," he added, truthfully, bringing in the mitigating factors, not only for Harry's review but for his own. "Fletcher is annoying. He really and truly hates me. I just don't understand it."

"Maybe because you tried to kill him?" Harry suggested carefully, then added quickly, "By your own admission at breakfast today."

Severus bit back a retort, then frowned. "Okay. Point granted. That was over the top. I shouldn't have said that straight out in front of so many witnesses. Severus is supposed to be evil now, not stupid."

You tried to kill an Auror?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"No!" Severus denied, offended, "I was stopping Nott from killing him! He is taking this entirely out of context!"

"Taking what, exactly, out of context?" Ron asked, sounded rather like he didn't particularly want to know the answer.

"The Avada Kedavra I threw over his shoulder." Both fifth-years stopped and stared at him, falling behind as he and Harry kept walking.

Harry and Severus waited for them to catch up. "No second year should be capable of casting the killing curse," Hermione stated, recovering first.

Severus shrugged. "Nott said I'm still an adult in magical ability. I've noticed homework is a lot easier, too. Though I don't know if that's because I half-remember it still or what."

"You shouldn't know how to cast that, nevermind want to," Ron put in his very Gryffindor-ish two cents on the subject.

He shrugged again. "They taught me. I learned. I'm not stupid. And you never know when any kind of information might come in useful or even necessary."

Harry smirked, and remarked disbelievingly, "And the Hat still put you in Gryffindor."

"Thats as Ravenclaw as it is Slytherin," Severus pointed out, not really feeling like defending the Hat's decision. Not that he thought the Hat had much in the way of defence anyway. "Which is where I was trying to get into." Oh, why not be devil's advocate? "Best I can figure on the Gryffindor thing is that my Matty persona isn't going to need to worry about that kind of thing. Matty is a Gryffindor. Severus is a Slytherin." Another uneasy thought occurred to him, and he tacked it onto the end of his explanation just because it seemed to fit there nicely. "And I'm going to have a split personality by the end of the term."

Ron snorted, obviously taking his honest concern for the joke he had passed it off as. "Just so long as the evil half sticks aroud Slytherin."

Severus returned the laugh, wondering why this felt as much like acting as being Severus did. He glanced at Harry and said light-heartedly, "I thought you said he would freak."

"Maybe if you show him your arm," the older boy suggested helpfully.

Severus gave a real laugh at that, that it was from surprise rather than humour didn't change that it was genuine. "I'll freak right along with him, then."

"What is on your arm?" Hermione asked curiously.

In for a pence in for a pound. Severus slid back his sleeve just enough to reveal the tattoo. Even with the glamour on his appearance, it wouldn't go away. The two fifth years gasped in horror and revulsion as they saw the skull and snake. Severus quickly covered it up again. "That's why I need to kill Voldemort," he said, his voice cold and flat. "I won't be mine until he's gone." Then his expression and tone did a complete one-eighty, and he smiled cheerfully at the older students, pushing down deep the anger, fear, and chilled determination that had no place in Matty's world. "But that's Severus's problem, not mine. Just how far is it to the Astronomy Tower, anyway, Harry? We've been walking for ages."