The boy's jump was downright satisfying. A quick levitation charm kept the dropped tail from falling into the potion. "Ten points from Gryffindor for doing exactly what I said not to do!" His voice had the bite that six years as the Potion's Professor's devoted follower had taught him.

"I...I," Longbottom stammered, probably trying to protest that it had been an accident.

Clarence tried to swoop down on him, but the school robes wouldn't cooperate and his red hair and lightly freckled nose did nothing for intimidation. It didn't help that he was only as tall as Neville himself. Blasted Tragyl genes had given himself and most of his brothers a rather late growth spurt. Clarence's had yet to come.

In leiu of an imposing height and colouring, he made use of stance and facial expression. He crossed his arms, and frowned at the clumsy Gryffindor, almost managing the Malfoy trick of looking down at someone who's not shorter than ones self. Words, however, were one thing he could level at another with nearly as much effect as Snape himself. He plucked the rat's tail from the air over the cauldron, and spoke quietly, the words laced with menace. "Do you have any idea of what would have occurred had this gone into your potion?" You blundering fool was unspoken, but understood.

Longbottom was staring at him, wide-eyed and white-faced. Clarence was even close enough to see that the boy was sweating. Mother would not likely take well to the news that her 'good twin' was terrorizing younger students. But then, she had never had to teach potions. Neither had Professor Zmiya for that matter, Clarence thought, almost smugly. Clarence had usurped the position quite neatly. Longbottom shook his head nervously, in answer to Clarence's question. "N-no."

Clarence did not look away from his unlucky victim. "Miss Granger, why don't you inform your classmate of what he nearly did?"

"Adding rat's tail to a brightening potion would have neutralized its effects, but it is hardly dangerous," she answered promptly and with a hint of censure for making such a big deal about it.

Clarence looked at her as if surprised. "Clearly, Miss Granger, you have not been paying attention." This was more an insult than anything even Professor Snape had ever said to Longbottom. She went white, then flushed red. Before she could argue, however, he explained, "Longbottom is accident-prone and without a potions-adept cell in his body. One would think, with someone as bright as yourself at the next table, you would have noticed him substituting beetle wings for bat wings in the third step, thus making the addition of rat's tail an explosion ready to happen. Detention for not preventing or even noticing a potentially dangerous combination." He turned on his heel to stalk towards Crabbe and Goyle, who were stirring clockwise when they should be going counter-clockwise.

Behind him, he heard Ron whisper to Harry, "I swear, Aunt Keri must have had an affair with Snape and the twins were charmed to look like her side of the family so no one would know."

Clarence almost forgot about the Slytherin's improper stirring as he turned toward his second cousin, unsure if he should be amused, outraged, or just simply stunned. "Detention, Mr. Weasley," he said, his tongue taking over while his brain tried to reach a decision on how to take that remark, "for your cheek." Harry tried to stiffle a laugh, but didn't completely succeed. Clarence's eyes latched onto him in warning, "Would you share what you find so amusing with the class, Mr. Potter?"

Harry pressed his lips together and shook his head back and forth quickly.

"Detention for uncooperative behaviour." He turned abruptly toward Crabbe and Goyle, "Five points from Slytherin! Stir that the other way!" That dealt with, he returned to regarding his cousin. Ron shifted nervously under Clarence's heavy gaze. "You called my brother a bastard, and my mother unfaithful," he said quietly, disregarding for now the fact that, in Ron's eyes, he had compared well enough to his favourite teacher to earn a rumour of being his son. "I am certain that Professor Zmiya will allow me to personally oversee your detention, Cousin."

He saw Harry look across the room to where Draco Malfoy sat, and figured that the class's other troublemaker was about weigh in on the confrontation. Clarence turned toward the blond and frowned menacingly, "Say one word, and you'll be joining them in detention, Cousin." The word held as much threat for Malfoy as it had for Ron. Thankfully, Draco only smirked at Harry and returned to his own cauldron, not daring to call Clarence's bluff. The rest of the class passed with the students walking on eggshells around the detention-happy prefect.

Detention began at 8:00 sharp. At 8:00:01, Clarence frowned at the door to the empty classroom, which obligingly swung open, and three Gryffindors hurried breathlessly through it. "You're late," he snapped. "Sit," he commanded, pointing at one of the desks. Meekly, they did so.

"Sorry, Pro-Prefect," Hermione apologized. "Malfoy blocked the way and wouldn't let us by."

Clarence nearly goggled at her. Had she really just almost called him 'Professor'? He pulled himself under control and looked each of them in the eye. "Tonight's detention will be fairly simple, and not even terribly onerous, despite your offense," he looked pointedly at Ron, who shifted uncomfortably. The other two relaxed, just a little. But then he cast silencing charms around the room and said, "You will now tell me about Matty Groves." They immediately stiffened again. Pitiful. Hopefully no one else made the connection or the Professor's secret was toast.

He drew a folder off of his teacher's desk, and opened it. He first placed Matty's essay on the table in front of the three. He then placed one of Severus's beside it. Finally, he placed an opened research notebook of the Professor's on its other side. "You may notice, as I did, a decided similiarity between the handwriting of your friend, his enemy, and our professor. Remarkably, Matty Groves' looks even more like Professor Snape's than his own younger self's."

Harry swallowed visibily.

"I might have suspected Matty of cheating but for two facts." He looked at each of them again to make them understand the seriousness of the situation. "First is that they are rivals who apparently can't look at each other without throwing hexes. The second was that it was Dumbledore who told me to examine the handwritings."

Harry slumped in his relief. The other two were barely less obvious.

"So I ask you again, tell me about Matty Groves."

"He's Severus," Harry began, hesitantly. "But you know that already, don't you?"

"It was what I was given to understand through the hints Dumbledore gave me, yes. What I don't understand is why he was enrolled as two so vastly different people."

"Um," Harry bit his lip and looked at Hermione, as if for answers. Granted she was a good place to look for them, but then he turned back to Clarence and spoke for himself. "What do you know about Professor Snape and what, exactly, did Dumbledore tell you about Matty?"

Clarence reminded himself that, despite his impatience, it was a good thing, for Snape, that Harry was being so cautious. "I had questioned, in the Headmaster's presence during a private interview, the motives of Professor Snape's younger incarnation. Professor Dumbledore gave me one of those looks he can give and told me to grade Matty's potions essay. That was all he said, but I imagine he knew perfectly well that I could recognize Professor Snape's handwriting as easily as my own." He gave the three Gryffindors a small smirk, "As Matty's constant companions, the three of you were doomed to detention long before you walked into the classroom this morning."

Hermione found the humour in that more easily than the two boys. Harry and Ron looked affronted, and Clarence would bet the whole of Honeyduke's inventory that his cousin was about to accuse him of being as unfair as Snape when Hermione spoke, wearing a small smile. "Ron rather played right into your hand, didn't he, Prefect?"

Clarence grinned right back at her. "It gave me every excuse to proctor this detention with no questions asked." He spared a smirk for the gaping Weasley. "And for that I thank you. Menteron, incidently, is none too pleased about your insinuation, and he's planning to talk to Fred and George about ways to retaliate." Ron knew as well as he did that the Weasley twins and the Gryffindor Tragyl twin were like three peas to the pod. The younger boy paled.

"And you, Clarence?" Ron asked, nervously, proving he did have brains. "I don't think this detention counts as your revenge."

Clarence shrugged. "For the suggestion that my mother would do that, and the obscene idea that Menteron could possibly be related to Professor Snape, I told," will tell, "Fred that you had detention tonight and the precise time I plan to," did, "let you out. For the compliment that I could be related to the Professor, I see no reason to enact a revenge of my own."

It was obvious that he couldn't decide whether to be relieved by Clarence's declaration of peace, worried by the twins' knowledge of his night's comings and goings, horrified by Clarence's taking his comment as a compliment, or suspicious of Clarence's true intentions. That confusion and half-expection of a possible retaliation was all the revenge Clarence felt was in order for the transgression. "Back to Matty."

The three Gryffindors exchanged uncertain looks, trying to wordlessly decide whether or not they should talk frankly with the Ravenclaw Prefect.

"Why Dumbledore's nephew?" Clarence asked, hoping it was a neutral enough question that they might answer.

Harry gave a small smile. "Sev's a sweet kid. Dumbledore was only too glad to adopt him." Sweet was a word Clarence had never expected to hear in regards to Snape, particularly not from Harry Potter. "Being the grandson of the Headmaster's brother gave Dumbledore an excuse to do just that. Sev's parents are dead, you see, but he's still only twelve for most intents and purposes. He needed a guardian."

"But why adopt Matty instead of Severus himself?"

"Severus is legally thirty-nine," Harry pointed out. "Besides, by the time adoption became a topic of discussion, he'd already been back to Voldemort once. The Headmaster couldn't very well adopt him openly and allow him to spy. Voldemort would get suspicious."

Clarence blinked. It had never occurred to him that the child Severus might be a spy. When he had first been turned into a boy again, Clarence had assumed the Professor had been one, but that he had continued that duty? The thought had never crossed his mind. When the former professor showed up with Auror in tow, Clarence's doubts had fallen to the opposite extreme: both the Professor and the child had been true Death Eaters.

That the old Snape had been one or the other, spy or Death Eater, Clarence had complete certainty. It was only which of the two he was unsure of. He had never asked why his mentor would suddenly leave their late night brewing sessions. It was a topic Snape very obviously had held no intention of discussing. But after several such occurances, Clarence had become plagued by the bane of all Ravenclaws: curiousity.

So he did the only thing any Ravenclaw raised by Gryffindors and Slytherins would do. The next time it happened, he staked out Snape's living quarters once he finished the potion. When the professor returned at one in the morning, usually immaculate shiny black shoes lined with a film of moisture and mud, Clarence knew the man was going outside and probably leaving Hogwarts altogether. So he did the only logical thing to do: He warded the school property to find out where the Professor crossed the boundry. He folded his spell among the Anti-Apperation wards so Snape wouldn't notice it as he crossed through the lines of magic.

Once the ward was activated, the Ravenclaw went to the spot and hid in a nearby tree, assuming correctly that Snape would return by the same path he left through. It was almost three in the morning when Snape came back that time. He apperated in right near where Clarence was hidden. Snape wore a Death Eater's mask, and, even across the several yards that seperated them, the Professor smelt of blood. He took off the mask, shrunk it, hid it in his robes, and cast a cleaning spell on himself. Then he went back to the castle, with nothing but dirt on his shoes to give away his late night activity. Clarence hadn't move for almost twenty minutes. He didn't know what to make of it.

Professor Snape was . . . a difficult person to get along with, if you weren't Clarence or a Slytherin. He knew this. He knew what his friends, what his brothers, what people in general thought and said about him. He couldn't imagine the Professor being a Death Eater, but he knew equally that just because the man was nice to him, a Ravenclaw pureblood who could brew the Draught of the Living Death by the time he was six, that didn't make him a good person generally. He knew Snape enjoyed making Longbottom tremble. Snape himself had told him that he finds it amusing to taunt and torture his students. (Something Clarence hadn't understood at the time, but agreed heartily with now.) He's said the only reason he was still at Hogwarts was because he had an obligation to remain. He didn't mention whether the obligation was to Dumbledore or Voldemort. Snape had left that point rather ominously vague.

What was he supposed to think when he saw his favorite teacher come back from places unknown in the small hours of the morning, wearing the attire of a Death Eater and stinking of violence? He had justified not informing anyone of his discovery by the rationalization that Dumbledore wouldn't hire a Death Eater. He hadn't confronted Snape about it because, well, (a) Clarence been spying on a teacher, (b) Snape was either a spy or a Death Eater, and (c) the likely reward for his curiousity was either an obliviate or an avada kedavera. Since Ravenclaws fear the one as much as the other, he had kept his mouth shut and his knowledge to himself.

Snape had disappeared a few days after that, and eventually returned as a child. Clarence had thought it fairly obvious at that point what must have happened. Snape was a spy. He'd been discovered and forced to drink some awful potion that turned him into a twelve-year-old. It had been with an internal sense of relief that he heard the news of Snape's transformation. Outwardly, of course, he lamented the loss of his favourite teacher, and that was not at all feigned either.

When the boy showed up with an Auror guard, Clarence had adjusted his former opinion, which was obviously flawed by his naivety. Voldemort would have killed Snape if he had been discovered as a spy. The Death Eaters and Snape had some other kind of plot going. The plot just started to look all the more nefarious when it became obvious that Severus had mixed Clarence's little sister up in it.

"So he was a spy," Clarence said, after a few moments pause as these memories marched their way through his mind.

Harry's eyes widened, and Clarence realized the younger boy hadn't meant to give that away. The Gryffindor must be truly awful at keeping secrets. It was a wonder the whole school didn't already know Matty and Severus were one and the same.

So was the Professor compromised and punished, or was he part of a nefarious plot while still holding loyalty to Dumbledore? Clarence's head hurt. Then his eyes snapped wide open. Father knew!

. . . two possible outcomes . . . he makes it back to Hogwarts safely and isn't killed by either the aurors hunting him or the Death Eaters he has betrayed yet again. How did Father know he had betrayed them the first time? It was worrisome. Father had been a Slytherin. He was just as adament as Tryna about not giving away information about known Death Eaters. And just how were his parents so certain that Grandfather Tragyl wasn't a Death Eater?

But Mum wouldn't let him be a Death Eater. Not even as a spy. Clarence was sure of that. Or did he only think that because they were his parents? No. No, his father would never do such a thing. He had married a Gryffindor - a Weasley Gryffindor no less; no Slytherin would trust him after that.

But he was still left with the question: how did Father know about Snape being a spy? He wished he could talk to Tryna about this, but Tryna idolized their father worse than he idolized Snape. Even if it was true, which Clarence doubted, she'd obliviate him just so he wouldn't tell. Nevermind that she didn't know how yet. And an inexperienced obliviate was even more frightening than a well-done one.

Wait. Tryna might have kept Father updated on her progress with her 'patient'. Confidentiality didn't count when it was Tryna talking to Father. Tryna told him everything. Well, except the plan to free Severus. That was one of those times when his Slytherin sister would have decided asking forgiveness was easier than asking permission. She would have had every intention of informing him about it; just after the fact. So. Assume Tryna told him about Snape's spying. Clarence liked that theory much better.

"Um," Harry said, and Clarence made a mental effort to remember where his thoughts had left the conversation. Oh, right. Asking confirmation about Snape being a spy. "You didn't know?" The Gryffindor sounded part-surprised, part-chagrined.

"I . . . suspected," Clarence simplified his experience on the matter, without clarifying what he had suspected. "How did you know?"

Harry looked uncertain about whether or not he should reveal that information. "They thought I was asleep," he eventually answered, vaguely.

Clarence didn't press. That wasn't the information he wanted to know anyway. "The professor's allegiance is irrelevant anyway. Until last night, I thought the younger version was a wannabe evil monster, whose skill with poisons gave him a head start over all other wannabe dark wizards his age. Now you tell me he was . . ." Clarence made a distressed face as he quoted the younger student, "'sweet'."

"That's Harry's word," Ron disagreed. "Matty was still a scary kid. Brilliant. But scary." At that assessment, both Harry and Hermione gave him odd looks. He added defensively, "In a different way than you are, 'Mione."

The girl rolled her eyes heavenward, but made no verbal response to her friend's words. As an aside to Clarence, she said, "Ron and Severus coordinated the Matty-Severus rivalry together. They had entirely too much fun with it, in my opinion. Matty should have been studying Arithmancy. After skipping a grade, he was seriously behind."

"He was studying Arithmancy," Harry disagreed with her. "He used his timeturner more than even you did in third year."

Ah. A timeturner. So that's how the two of them could be seen together. The pieces were beginning to fall into place. "How did you meet him?"

Harry looked breifly at Clarence's prefect badge, hesitating. "I was out after hours, just walking. I happened to see him also out in the halls." He shrugged. "I followed him. I wanted to know what he was up to." Green eyes looked up at met Clarence's. "He was just Severus then. It was before the Auror and Matty came. Sev's just a kid. He was branded a Death Eater, but he is just a kid. There was a summons that night. He didn't even know what it was. All he knew was that his arm hurt. He collapsed against a wall. I went to see what what wrong. He showed me the Mark, and told me that the tattoo hurt."

Clarence flinched. It was one thing to have academic knowlege that one's mentor was a Death Eater, or had been. It was another to have someone report seeing the brand on his skin.

The tattoo hurt, Harry had quoted. Clarence couldn't see anyone referring to the Dark Mark as anything as mundane as a muggle tattoo. Had Severus the Younger really been that innocent? Dumbledore's words replayed in his mind. I fear for his innocence, not his life. Which, in turn, reminded him of the letter that had prompted those words. And the worry and sense of age on the Headmaster that the letter had provoked.

"He's just a kid. Whose insane idea was it to send him back to Voldemort?"

Harry gave a weak smirk. "He got Sorted into Gryffindor this time for a reason, Prefect."

Clarence blinked. Snape had gotten himself Sorted there, hadn't he? Clarence decided he didn't want to be anywhere near the Professor when he returned to normal.

"'Being a reckless hero,'" Harry continued, "is how he claims the Hat justified it. And Ron's right. Sev is scary. The first day I met him, he said he was going to kill Voldemort. He didn't care whether or not he died trying. Don't get me wrong, he's not suicidal, but . . . he considers it his mission to spy and his ultimate goal is to see Voldemort dead."

"It's scary," Ron reiterated.

"Everything about it is scary," Hermione added. "Severus is scared, we're scared for him, Dumbledore's scared for him, most of the students are scared of him. The professors who don't know - which is all of them but Lupin - are scared both of and for him. Professor Lupin's scared, too. The only one who isn't scared, seems to be Auror Fletcher."

Harry shook his head, smirking a bit. "According to Sev, he scares Fletcher, too."

"Really?" Hermione asked, as intrigued by that information as Clarence was, "He's only twelve. Why's an auror afraid of him?"

Harry looked uncertainly at Clarence, then shook his head. "Sev didn't say." It was an obvious lie.

Neither of the Gryffindors pressed, likely because they intended to do so when they were alone. "You're lying," Clarence informed the Boy-Who-Lived. "You're very bad at it."

"Sev didn't say," Harry repeated stubbornly. Clarence didn't believe him, but he recognized to futility of further attempts.

"One more question, then you'll help me scrub some cauldrons so it looks like we did something during this detention, then we can all go to bed." He paused, not intending to be dramatic, but to give them a chance to assimilate the evening's plan before he gave them their last question. "Did he really dose himself with melting poison just so he could spend an unspecified number of days out of class without raising suspicions?"

"Oh, no," Hermione assured him, "That was done by illusion charms."

Clarence felt - a probably looked - surprised. "Bloody brilliant illusion," he complimented the caster reverently, whomever he or she had been. "I was completely fooled." He'd had a pretty good view of the attack, too. If he hadn't spent so much time in the company of animal guts he probably would have had to dash for the nearest toilet, like most of the other close witnesses had.

When they left the room, some fifteen cauldrons later, Clarence pulled out his time turner. A few minutes after that, Clarence-time, Ron, Hermione, and Harry were arriving for detention with Clarence Take 1, and he was heading toward Gryffindor Tower to tell Fred and George Weasley that at 10:13 Ronald Weasley would be leaving the Potions classroom.

Peter Pettigrew looked down at the child-like figure on the bed. He himself had only woken a few hours ago from the unconsciousness caused by Snape's theft of his magic. He had been left on the ground outside, but the master had apparently troubled himself to bring the 'boy' up to his bed. That anyone could believe Snape was a child again utterly stumped him. The traitor was changed, yes, but not into a child. He had known Snape as a kid. This . . . creature wasn't him. This creature wasn't even human. Couldn't be. Not even Voldemort could take and use another's magic. And Voldemort wasn't human anymore, either.

He left the room, locking and warding it carefully behind him, to report to his master that Snape had remained unconscious for thirty-six hours now. He did not look forward to the punishment this unwelcome news would bring him. It was hardly his fault that Snape had overexerted himself by so much.