He glared at the classmates still giving him nasty looks. "Oh, go back to sleep," he muttered, then dropped back down onto his pillow to try to do the same. He had barely laid down again when he realized that wasn't going to work. After the nightmare, he was far too keyed up to sleep. Deciding a walk would be the best way to bleed off the adrenaline and nervous energy, he checked that his dormmates were at least on their way to dreamland again, then slipped from the dormitory.

The deserted common room only made him feel more restless, so he slipped out into the dungeon hallways of Hogwarts. Should he get caught, he'd just tell Filch that he'd had a nightmare and was going to talk to the Headmaster about it. It would satisfy the caretaker and Severus felt that Dumbledore would let him get away with almost anything short of physical attack. He'd heard rumours from the other young Slytherins about how Harry Potter, like James, could often get away from troublemaking with a point bonus rather than point decrement. What with being the altered potions master and a spy, Severus felt he qualified for the same leniency.

His excuse firmly established in him mind, so that if Filch startled him, it would be the first thing out of his mouth, Severus started to walk. He didn't know nor care where his feet took him, he just needed to walk. He concentrated his mind on just putting one foot in front of the other. He didn't want to think right now. His sole purpose was to exhaust himself so that when he returned to his bed, he could just collapse and not dream.

He had no idea how long he had been walking when he was suddenly consumed with a deep burning sensation that started in his left arm and spread through him. He bit back a scream, but he hunched over the arm, and slid down a convenient wall, failing to hold back tears of agony.

The air seemed to shiver off to his left, from the direction he had come from, but that might have just been an affect of the water in his eyes, so he dismissed it. The pain was more than enough to occupy his mind anyway. He gasped as another wave a fire passed through him. He curled into a tight ball.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he startled. He had no idea who the other was, but they were present and (presumably) human, and therefore qualified on all counts as his current best friend. He leaned against the other crying into their shirt. "Make it stop," he whispered. "It hurts."

Awkwardly, arms wrapped around him. "What hurts?"

His best friend was young and male. He discoved this by the sound of his voice and the shape of his body. He was just as glad he hadn't been crying on Filch or McGonagall, though even if it had been one of them he wouldn't have overly cared. "Tattoo. Everything. Make it stop."

"Tattoo?"

Severus fought with his sleeve and the bandage, and showed his friend the Mark, without ever taking his head from the other boy's shoulder. Without ever opening his eyes. "That tattoo."

There was a sharp intake of breath, and the body next to his stiffened. "We're going to Dumbledore."

Severus nodded. Why hadn't he thought of that? Hadn't the Headmaster said to come if it hurt? As he was helped to his feet, he discovered his friend was a good deal taller than himself. Leaning heavily on the taller boy, Severus decided introductions were in order. It was something to think about besides the pain. "I'm Severus Snape."

The other boy's step faultered briefly. "Harry Potter."

Potter. Of course it would be Potter. Still. "Thank you."

Again, the missed step. Merlin, didn't anyone think he knew how to be polite? "You're welcome."

A third wave of fire hit and Severus would have collapsed if Harry hadn't grabbed him. "Make it stop!" he cried out involuntarily. He didn't really expect Potter to be able to help.

"If anyone can, Dumbledore will," Harry assured him. They continued walking, much quicker than he had been before, and this time with a definite destination in mind.

"Why does it hurt?" he asked when he grown accustomed enough to the new level of pain to be able to listen to the answer.

"You're being summoned." Potter's voice was flat.

Severus ignored the tone. "Summoned. By Voldemort?"

"Who bloody else would summon you Death Eaters?"

"Death Eaters are the followers of Voldemort, right?"

Potter stopped, perforce making Severus come to a halt as well. The lack of progress toward Dumbledore was almost an additional physical pain. Severus looked up at his companion for the first time, glaring. He really did look an awful lot like James. Older, of course, but how he'd imagine James would look in fifth year. It did not improve his mood.

"You don't know that?"

"Can we keep walking?" Severus asked plaintively, failing to keep the desperation from his voice.

"Oh, right." They continued their journey, to Severus's relief. "You don't know what a Death Eater is?"

Severus shook his head. "Voldemort was just rising when I was a Second Year the first time. His followers hadn't been given any special name yet. Rumours of the Dark Lord were spreading, but they hadn't made it to the mainstream wizarding community yet. I mostly heard about him from my father or Lucius Malfoy. They talked about 'like-minded wizards,' not Death Eaters."

"Oh." They walked in silence for a short time. "How'd you get the Mark?"

"He'd've killed me if I didn't take it," he answered shortly, not wanting to talk about it. Thinking about the Mark made the pain that much harder to ignore. "What's he summoning me for and how would I go?"

"You're not thinking of going?"

"Can't spy if I don't."

He felt Potter's eyes on him. "Spy?"

Why was that so hard for people to grasp? His older self did it and nobody thought twice about that. "Yes."

"But you're, um, twelve. Sort of."

Severus gave him a withering look. "I'm mine." Potter just looked more confused. "Voldemort made me as his without asking me about it. But I'm mine. And I'm going to make sure it stays that way."

"So you're going to go, alone, into his stronghold, where he can do who knows what to you until you are truly his? You might have been Professor Snape a few days ago, but now you're not. No Second Year can stand against him."

"You did," Severus said quietly.

Harry Potter walked with him in silence the rest of the way to Dumbledore's office.

Harry Potter continued to eye the younger version of Severus Snape as the staircase spiraled them up to Dumbledore's office. The potions master - no, the boy - was living up to none of his expectations. He wasn't sarcastic and rude. He wasn't hateful or bitter. What he was, quite frankly, was young, vulnerable, hurt, and dangerously possesive of his own life. Though, truthfully, Harry couldn't blame him for this last.

When Harry had first noticed him wandering the halls, he had been suspicious and started to tail him. When Harry had seen him collapse in obvious pain, he had been concerned and tried to help help him. When Harry had been used as a shoulder to cry on, he had been stunned and awkwardly held the boy. When Harry was so trustingly shown the Dark Mark, he had been astonished and insisted on seeing Dumbledore. When Severus Snape the self-admitted Death Eater had agreed readily and eagerly, Harry had been confused.

Only when Snape had asked what a Death Eater was did Harry realize and accept that the child-like body of his potions master really was exactly what it looked like: a child. A possibly misled Slytherin child, but a child none-the-less. Which really threw Harry for a loop when the boy said he was a spy.

He had tried to point out the dangers to the young Snape, but the quiet, confident, and trusting rejoinder of "You did" really had no response. Aside from pointing out that he had had Ron and Hermione to help his first year, and he was only facing a teenaged Tom Riddle his second, or pointing out that his mother had died for him, there wasn't much he could say. Harry decided it was Snape's call to make. Or if not Snape's, then some adult's. Harry could only hope the little (it was really weird being taller than Snape) Slytherin knew what he was doing and that he wasn't getting in way over his head.

The door to Dumbledore's office opened as they reached it, and Harry wasn't particularly surprised to see that the Headmaster was still awake, even at two in the morning. Truthfully, Harry wasn't convinced the old wizard ever slept. Same went for Filch and grown-up Snape.

The Headmaster looked unusually solemn as the two students entered. Snape went right to him, showing the Mark as though it weren't something shameful. "It hurts. A lot. Harry said Voldemort is summoning me. How do I go?" There was something strangely innocent about asking Dumbledore of all people how to go to a Death Eater meeting.

"You don't know how to Apperate yet?"

Snape shook his head. "'Course not. I'm just a second year."

"Then you can't go." Snape's black gaze darkened on the Headmaster. Dumbledore raised a hand quickly, "I'm not denying you permission, Severus. You simply cannot go. To answer a summons, the elder Severus would go outside the Apperation barriers, touch his wand to his Mark, and then Apperate. There is no other way of getting there."

Snape shoved his arm forward angrily. "Then make it stop burning."

Dumbledore drew his wand and rolled back his sleeves, as if preparing for an arduous task. For all Harry knew, it could be just that. Countering the Dark Lord's summons couldn't be an easy task.

"Wait!" Snape cried suddenly. "Will he know you're helping me stop it?"

Dumbledore lowered his arms thoughtfully. "I honestly don't know."

Snape closed his eyes and regulated several deep breaths. Opening them again, he said calmly, "Then don't." The Headmaster looked ready to argue, but Snape cut him off with a question. "Why's he calling me if I can't come? Merlin, until Harry told me what was happening, I didn't even know what it meant."

Dumbledore sighed and sat down behind his desk. "There are several possibilities." Snape climbed into one of the chairs facing him, and Harry slipped into the other, feeling rather out-of-place. "The first is that he doesn't realize that you've forgotten the formalities of being summoned and that you don't know how to apperate."

"About that. Someone will teach me soon, right?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, Severus. That is a skill for students far older than you. You could end up splinching yourself."

The black eyes seemed to glow in defiant determination. "I will learn by the end of term, Headmaster. I'll teach myself if I have to. Better yet, I'll have Lucius teach me. Proof of ambition and thirst for forbidden knowledge. Old Voldemort'll like that. I'll talk to the Malfoy tomorrow about it. He's really just like Lucius all over again. Makes Hogwarts very homey and familiar and everything. Remus is even here." He smirked in Harry's direction. "Potter's a little too old, though. And, thankfully, Black seems to have gotten expelled."

"Severus, I don't think you should be -"

"It's MY life!" Harry stared at the boy. Snape or not, a second year should not be cutting off the Headmaster.

"Severus," Dumbledore warned.

Snape only glowered. "It's mine. I'm a thirty-nine year old with amnesia and a physical condition. My parents are dead and I don't even know how. I've been Marked as a bad guy. And it's all Voldemort's fault. I'm going to kill him, and if I get splinched trying, that's my problem."

Harry could only be silently thankful that Snape had never truly wanted him dead. Good side or no, that twelve year old could be downright frightening.

Dumbledore frowned. "As Headmaster -"

"I'm legally thirty-nine, Headmaster. You're not responsible for me, even if I am attending classes. I haven't any parents to send Howlers at you if I die. The rest of the wizarding world doesn't understand what happened to me. So I can do what I want."

"I could expel you, Severus." Harry got the impression that was more a reminder of fact than a threat.

Snape only smiled sweetly at him. Something Harry wouldn't have believed him capable of until he saw it. "But you don't want to force me to join Voldemort, do you? Without a place to live, where else could I go?"

Surprisingly, Dumbledore met this blackmail with a chuckle. "Imp."

Snape smirked. "I'm Slytherin, sir. And my arm hurts. What did you expect from me?"

"Nothing less, Severus. Nothing less. Just. Just beware Lucius."

"Of course, Headmaster. May I go to Madam Pomphrey and try to find a potion to help me sleep through this?" he gestured toward the Mark.

"Of course, child. Good night."

"Good night, Headmaster."

Harry watched him go, feeling like he missed something. "Headmaster?"

"Oh, Harry. Almost forgot you were there." His twinkle had returned, though it looked somewhat subdued.

"Why did you let him get away with all that?"

White brows lifted as if surpried by the question though he must have seen it coming. "Severus is in a very precarious position right now. As he said, his parents are dead. As it did in his fourth year, this is making him test his boundaries. But unlike his fourth year, there are other considerations to be made. I need to show that he can't get away with everything, yet I need to allow him to make his own decisions because he is, legally, thirty-nine. He also suffered a traumatic experience shortly after whatever caused him to lose his memory where, against his will, he was forced to call Voldemort his Master."

The Headmaster's smile was sad. "Needless to say, Severus did not take kindly to that. In hindsight, I fear it was my insistance that he not reveal what happened under the Womping Willow that drove him to Voldemort the first time. His life had been threatened, and the choice to do anything about it was forcibly taken from him. And now Voldemort has made the same mistake."

"He changed sides before," Harry felt obligated to point out.

Dumbledore actually beamed. "Yes."

Feeling the older man had missed the point, he claified, "How do you know he won't again?"

"That is why I am being very careful not to overly restict his freedom. As Voldemort became more powerful, he began to exert more control over his Death Eaters. You can guess how Severus took that."

"He switched sides." For some reason, it didn't surprise Harry that Snape left Voldemort over a contol issue rather than a moral one. Still, he felt somehow cheated and disappointed.

"To Severus, that was a moral issue, Harry," Dumbledore told him in a gently chiding voice. Harry only stared at him. Sure, the Headmaster seemed to know everything, but, mind reading?

The Headmaster chuckled. "You should perhaps return to your dormitory, now."

Harry stood, nodding, but paused before stepping onto the spiral staircase. Looking back, he asked, just to be sure, "He is just a twelve year old, right?"

The Headmaster sighed. "That is a difficult question to answer, Harry. Physically, he is ten. Mentally, he is twelve. Legally and chronologically, he is thirty-nine. Magically, we don't know. If he does successfully apperate, he is at least sixteen. I shall try to remind him to check his magical development before attempting it. Preferably when the Mark is not burning and he is, therefore, more open to advice and suggestions." He looked at Harry seriously. "Severus was in a great deal of pain tonight, though he did his best to hide that from himself and us. Do not judge his temper entirely on this evening alone."

Harry nodded slowly. That made sense. Sort of. Even if it was Snape.

"Oh, and Harry?"

Harry cocked his head and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"Watch out for him, please." It was not a warning. It was . . . exactly how Mrs. Weasley had told Percy to watch out for Ginny on her first year. Harry got the distinct impression he had just been volunteered to be Snape's big brother.

When the Mirror of Eresid had told him that his deepest wish was to have a family, this wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. "Yeah, sure."