DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created
and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited
to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner
Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark
infringement is intended. This is a parody, on which I am not making any
profit.

Authors note: There has been a 5 months gap in my updates. winces with humiliation

O.K.,

Whyyyyy don't we all just forget this ever happened. I will explain,-someday in the distant future.

Summery: Dudley has the fright of his life as a strange Harry tests his nerves. Severus' condition changes. Drastically. What will he find when Albus summons him to Harry's hotel room?

Chapter 4:

The Wakening

With painful difficulty, Harry pulled the blanket up a little farther over his eyes, hiding him from the light. Any movement made his heart beat faster, and his head pounded with pain on each beat.

His jaw ached and throbbed with his heart so badly he could hardly hold still under the pain. It felt as though someone was slowly puling out all of his teeth at once.

Even his skin hurt. It was strangely tight, like very dry lips that would crack when he smiled. No position would relieve the tightness.

His senses had gone mad. Every time his cousin on the other bed wiggled, or even breathed, Harry could feel the vibrations through his bed and through the very air.

In . . . out . . . in . . .

He couldn't hear Dudley though, - not over the ear splitting traffic noises, like jumbo jets zooming by his window. He heard voices too. There were people in this hotel room. Dozens. Hundreds. There had to be, - he could hear each and every individual voice in the din if he focused on it.

He couldn't see their colorful clothing through the blanket over his eyes, but he could smell the clean crisp white, the blue, and the vibrant vicious red most of all. Oh the colors.

Could this be a dream? Dreams weren't supposed to hurt.

Severus Snape floated on the surface of The Lake, watching the stars. Quit night noises surrounded him.

His clothes and skin remained dry, though he could feel the gentle wind-born waves role coolly beneath his back and legs.

The water ran through his hair, gently pulling, never dampening. Oak leaves rustled softly in the night breeze, their dark green still distinguishable to his nonhuman eyes. The wind carried a subtle musky sent, part horse and part . . . part sopping wet Remus Lupen. He almost lifted his head to look for the annoying man,-beast. Such was the similarity between his smell and that of sleeping thestrals.

He couldn't recall coming out here, though he should make note to do this more often. So calm. So beautiful.

Could this be a dream? By what spell was he floating . . . this line of thought drifted off into the darkness.

Mist was rising from the lake's cool rippling surface. Wisps slid over him and swirled slowly on the dark shifting water. . .

And then he was entering Hogwarts, refusing his natural inclination to hurry away from the cheerful laughter and murmur of voices inside. As he stepped though the door, a blast of social noises and human smells almost battered him back out. They were dressed in their normal attire,and there were hundreds of them. Packing every viable cranny of Hogwarts, they were sipping drinks and sampling orderves.

Futilely, he entered the crowd, heading towards his rooms. Argus intercepted him immediately.

"Severus, glad to see you here!" he exclaimed, his happiness clearly genus. This partiers wasn't dressed as usual, he was wearing a muggle suit. How odd.

"You know we could hardly have this whole mess," he gestured to the crowd, "without you here."

"I can't imagine why not," Severus said stoically.

"Oh, Severus!" The headmaster was now standing beside him in bright blue robes. "My dear boy," he cried "even you wouldn't miss your own funeral would you?" The old man smiled, blue eyes twinkling marry.

The crowed fell silent.

There was an ocean-like rustle of clothing on skin as everyone in the great crowed turned to stare right at him.

He looked down at himself. He wasn't naked, and he wasn't a funny color. Those would have been embarrassing but acceptable reasons for people to stare. They were staring at him because of who he was.

"Its all right Severus, we're not afraid of you," Argus' voice shook. Behind him, all the teachers of Hogwarts stood, staring. McGonagall watched him as sternly as ever but Trelawney looked about ready for a hysterical prophesy. Argus offered a glass of blood to him with a slightly unsteady hand. "We're not afraid, see." It was human blood.

Severus bolted for the door. His inhuman speed was quickly reduced by the need to shove partiers out of his way. He was halfway to a door now. He pushed rudely past Theodore Knot, Fudge's niece, and his own mother, glinting pale and cold.

His hand touched the door,-and he was engulfed in a wave of odiferous gas. The smell stopped his breath. Fish? Rotting fish? He was on his knees before the gaping crowd, suffocating . . .

Dudley watched his cousin, obviously out of it, wriggling and twitching and clearly having no idea Dudley was even there. He was getting worse. If Harry didn't improve soon,-no. If he wasn't talking and walking in the next, say, ten minutes, Dudley was calling the hospital. There was a phone in the room. He would dial the emergency number. To hell with what happened after, he wasn't going to just sit there and watch someone die.

In . . . out . . . in . . . Harry wished his cousin would leave the room. The terrible vibration of his breathing made Harry's head hurt worse.

Dudley decided he would try to find an ice dispenser and bring some back in a plastic bag. Harry seemed to have a fever. Maybe if he was cooled down Harry would recover and Dudley wouldn't have to make the call.

Mercifully, Harry felt his cousin leave the room with movements like an earthquake. Beautiful stillness came after, if not silence. Never silence.

When Dudley came back, Harry was sitting up in bed staring at him. He had a funny look in his eyes.

"Say, Dudley," Harry asked," How did you father first learn about magic? I mean, he never seemed,-shocked or in denial about it, when I did accidental magic. You'd think your family would just pretend magic doesn't exist since they hate weirdness so much!"

Harry studied Dudley as he spoke. Technically, the Dursleys were Harry's family too, but Dudley didn't object. Dudley seemed to Harry to be in an odd mood.

"Oh, no," Dudley's voice grew quiet, almost to a whisper, "I'm pretty sure he knew about that stuff much earlier. Before he met Mom, even." Dudley turned to stare at the curtained window, rubbing his doughy chin

"He had some friend, when he was a kid. Not his age though. More his mom's age, so I guess he was grandma's friend. Dad mentioned him a few times. Not since you first went to . . . Hogywarts is it?"

"Hogwarts, School of Witch Craft and Wizardry" Harry corrected by habit.

"Ya, Dad said that at one time this guy would come around and give him cool presence, but I think this guy was some sort of magic person. Then his mother figured out that this guy was a frea-Uh-magical, and didn't want anything more to do with him. I know Dad said once that grandpa reeeeeeeeealy hated the guy. Couldn't stand him, even before they figured out about the magic. Dad said that he got his good judgment for recognizing strangeness from his father, who knew a freak when he saw one, - Sorry"

"No problem, - Dud," Harry said.

Harry watched Dudley fidget and stammer. His cousin must be keeping an awfully big secret to warrant all that wiggling. Harry nodded with hidden amusement. As he listened, he took note of his own psychical condition.

He still felt a bit drowsy - mentally fuzzy- as if he were recovering from a cold. It was actually a pleasant feeling. He might shut his eyes and drift off gently at any moment. He ached, yes, but much less than before. His throbbing jaw and grinding headache were almost gone, a shadow of their former angry agony. What ever germ or spell this was, he was beating it.

As he thought, Harry moved his jaw slowly back and forth.

Dudley watched Harry as though hypnotized. Harry's teeth were too long. Not pointy, or anything that dramatic, just a tad overly long. They came down farther than before, Dudley was certain. He tried to keep talking.

"Uhh . . . and he -ahum, you know that picture . . . he. Actually. "

Dudley froze. Something was definitely not right here.

"Soooo . . .," Harry prompted, sounding so normal and slightly annoyed. Then Harry cocked his head, not an odd mannerism but new for him, and he . . . sniffed. He was staring into Dudley's eyes.

Then he licked his lips.

Slowly, like a movie mummy rising, Harry's dark right eyebrow went up. And up. When had he learned that? "You were saying?" Harry quarried expectantly. He gave a delicate feline sniff.

Did Harry know he was scaring the crap out of his cousin? He must notice the teeth. Was he just toying with Dudley? Should Dudley make a run for it?

Harry's bed lay between Dudley and door, with Harry sprawled out on it like a cat. Taking a deep breath, Dudley kept on talking.

"You know that orangey black and white picture on the piano bench?" Dudley asked. (The Dursleys had a piano bench but no piano, which was about the highest level of weirdness Mrs. Dursley could stomach.)

"You mean, with the three people in it. Yes. I know it's of your Grandparents. Is the skinny one by your grandmother the guy we're talking about?"

Harry had never seen these people in life, and nether had Dudley. They both died before he was born.

"No. That's not him," Dudley said sharply, glaring waspishly at the closed window curtain. To Harry he seemed very uneasy about something. "I assumed that was him to at first too, actually. Dad was so mad about that."

"Mad? At you? Why?"

Dudley cleared his through noisily. "The skinny one is my grandfather. That's why Dad was so mad. I didn't recognize my own grandfather. I thought he was being awfully mean at the time. I'd never seen the man before after all," Dudley turned maneuvered his large self until he faced Harry and continued, "and the other guy looks exactly like Dad. Exactly"

Harry wasn't sure what he should say in this situation. His head still felt like it was drifting through the clouds. "Ya, he really does. I just assumed it was him, I mean, he actually looks an awful lot like you, too"

Harry tried to put a patch on the conversation, "Well, it hardly matters one way or another if he was,- really your grandfather because of some - affair. If you were going to ever have magic I'm sure you'd have gotten a Hogwarts invitation letter when I did!"

Dudley gave Harry the nastiest look he'd ever received, which, considering Snape, Malfoy and even Voldemort, was really saying something.

Then the look was gone, and so was Dudley. He was out of the door faster than Harry would have thought he could move. "I'm going to get some food from the vending machine." Dudley croaked out.

Harry shouted after, "Ya, bring me some -." The door slammed in the middle of his sentence.

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Fish smell overwhelmed Severus, who fell to his knees before the crowd. This was it then. This was the end . . . fish. Why did it have to be . . .?

Severus' eye's snapped open. Lion was staring at him, nose almost touching his own considerable proboscis. Severus shoved Lion and the cat's fish-stink breath away from his face.

Where had the beast gotten food already this morning?

Snape stilled, listening for the breath of the other boys to tell him whether they still slept. Hopefully he could be showered and gone before they woke so he could be early to potions.

Severus had a vague thought of consulting his potions professor before the silence of his stone chamber reached his waking brain.

How odd. For a moment there he'd actually thought he was a student of Hogwarts again, back in his old dorm room in Slytherin. He'd never experienced such a thing before, except as a guest of Madam Pomphry in the hospital wing after a Meeting, which was entirely excusable considering the useless mind altering concoctions she was want to poor down his poor throat at such times. Even then he'd forgotten where he was but never when.

The only breathing in his underground room came from him and his cat. The realization of age was a gratifying relief. Adulthood was so much better. The forgetful and gullible idealized childhood but he knew better.

He could now brew whatever potions he liked now, whenever he liked, and if he became truly fed-up with his situation in life, there was the calming knowledge of his ingenious backup plan (and the backup plan for the backup plan, extra. . .) which would leave him safely in the muggle world with a new untraceable wand and plenty of gillons to spend. That they would be someone else's gillons would make them all the more enjoyable.

Laying in the perfect darkness, he felt safer, calmer even and, - dare he think it, - happier than he had for some time. Any why not? It was summer after all wasn't it? That required a moment of thought, entombed as he was in this windowless season-less room. Children were the bane of his existence, almost as annoying as being a child, and with them gone he should be rejoicing!

He lay back and shut his eyes, trying to experience again the vivid memory of his dorm room, more than a decade old.

The cool breeze that trickled under the door smelled slightly of lake, but more of forest,-oak bark and moist dirt.

He remembered Lucas's face as a child, his sneer and how he looked when angry, and realized he and Draco were not so much alike as people (like the boy himself) thought. There was Rudulphus's cat, a slender gray queen with black points who hated everyone but Severus, to Rudulphus's perpetual disgust.

His own considerably larger cat, noticing that Severus did not spring instantly from slumber, jumped back up onto Severus like a fist in the gut.

Severus decided to get started on a potion,-a small fun sort of concoction that he'd imagined for years but had just never gotten around to somehow. He eagerly prepared the small laboratory in his rooms, cheerfully whipping up dust from the little green marble counter, and readying the caldron. While double checking ingredients he mentally composed a to-do list.

There was a good book he'd been meaning to read. A muggle one. He'd been meaning to alter his curriculum for several years also. He'd made a thousand mental notes on the subject, 'add this potion' 'change that explanation,'- but for some reason he'd never gotten around to it. Now whole days would be required to simply too recall all of them, but he could.

Why had he ever let things go this long?

Something itched at the back of his mind. He recognized the kind of memory that slips away like a mouse when one rummages around for it. He'd wait for it to come to him. He had plenty of time.

Severus felt wonderful. Night was coming. His floor was covered with freshly written papers. His kitchen counter was blanketed in yellowed parchment and books. His bed was worse. He was really accomplishing something here. The brats would learn this year whether they liked it or not!

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Assuming that he couldn't procrastinate much longer before Harry came after him, Dudley headed back towards his and Harry's room, carrying junk food from the machine.

It wasn't his cousin's reference to Dudley's lack of magic that drove him from the room. Well, not only that. Harry was putting of massive creepy-vibes. Dudley's hair stood on end just being in the same room with him. Then there were the teeth.

As Harry sat there listening to Dudley's pathetic story , asking normal sounding questions, his jaw rocked back and forth and his canines, resting on his lower lip, would seem to rock a bit as though loose.

Dudley opened the door.

"So, what did you bring me?" Harry asked as he whirled around to face the door so fast he almost blurred. . Dudley stepped back.

"I'm starving, absolutely starving. Anything with chocolate, -like mini donuts? Or cheese?" Dudley slowly crept into the room, keeping eyes glued to Harry.

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The red setting sun was peeking through the curtains as Dudley attempted to get to sleep. He knew this wasn't going to happen. His normal bedtime was long hours away. They were reposing now for Harry sake. Harry was the other sleep deterrent.

Dudley Dursley was not inclined to fall asleep in the same room as anything that lost its teeth and re-grew them within an hour.

Only a sliver of rosy light was visible in the darkened room. To Dudley, anyway. Harry had gotten up to turn out the lights and then maneuvered through the baggage strewn floor on the way back with the silent speed of one who could see exactly where he was going.

Dudley's mind kept returning to one question; just how much Harry (who was probably blissfully sleeping, the little creep) could hear,-or small, from the bed so close to his own. Dogs could smell emotions, Dudley knew. They smelled the chemicals a body made.

Could Harry? Could Harry hear his beating heart, or even the ocean sound Dudley heard when he listened to a sea shell; an ocean of blood inside his . . . O.K. That was just too gross. Bravery was for other people, and they could find him sitting safely in the well lit hallway, with a door between him and his cousin.

Dudley grasped the blanket covering him, about to throw it off and run.

A rustle of fabric stopped him. Then came sloppy mouth noises. Dudley cringed violently through a vivid mental image of the re-growing teeth, oozing blood and pointed white -

A shriek, painfully high like a dying animal's, came from the other side of the room. Dudley's heart froze. More rustling and the creak of bed springs told Dudley his cousin was out of bed.

Oh God. Oh God. A primitive part of Dudley's mind started screaming. He's coming for me, He's coming for me, and He's going to eat me. That same primitive voice would not let Dudley move, not even an inch towards the door or anywhere.

Dudley's ears strained for any sound.

He heard the door creak minutely, and the tiniest breath of cigarette-smoke air touched Dudley's face. Then a click. Harry was gone.

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Albus Dumbledore snuck another chocolate into his mouth. They were delectable. He nodded and smiled as the French Headmistress spoke. She wanted a student exchange program and was encouraging Professor Dumbledore to expand and improve Hogwarts curriculum, 'So Britain can squelch this Voldemort situation before it becomes a 'severe security threat.'

Albus assured Headmistress Vincent that even Voldemort showed reasonable concern for the secrecy of the wizarding world. He must, or his followers and supporters would turn on him and rip him apart without hesitation, so ingrained was this certainty of the need for secrecy within wizarding sociaty.

He also mentioned that an improved education would yield smarter Death Eaters as well. He did not mention the mind boggling degree of censorship and restriction placed on Hogwarts by the Ministry of Magic and even by the wizarding public at large. Whenever fear increased, the ministry increased restriction, and the restrictions were approved of by a frightened populous who felt 'something' must me done.

They expected him to teach Defense against the Dark arts without specifying what the Dark Arts even were much less how they worked.

She had a point though. He had to admit though, that in the subjects of Arithmacy, Healing, and higher Herbology, there was room for improvement. He might do more for the war effort by utilizing his position as a teacher than any other way. Was that not why he first sought the position of headmaster, so long ago?

He removed another chocolate from the dish, and was about to pop it into his mouth when he felt something painfully hot through the fabric of his breast pocket. Harry was in danger. He leaned forward and quickly finished the conversation with Headmistress Vincent.

The headmistress looked a bit miffed and even more curios. Albus didn't notice because he was dashing for the fireplace, sending a chair flying and leaving his phoenix Fawkes to flap after him. He tossed in flue powder and called out, "Arabella Figg's House,"

Severus was using quill and parchment to record a startaling epiphany he'd had regarding teaching a complex potion to complete idiots when the headmaster's emergency beacon started wailing.

He should have known this day was too good to be true. He aerated right to the headmaster's side, though a harmless bit of (slightly) dark magic. As always, he had a moment of dread as he recalled Apparition blind to so many Death Eater meeting.

At the moment of apperation he was smacked in the face by a wall of scents and sound. This was an urban muggle alley, with tens of thousands of busy humans moving all around him. So many. A moment of blind panic ended when a hand fell on his shoulder.

He jerked back and whorled to face the headmaster. There was concern in the old man's eyes. Was there a moment of apprehension too? He was too sensitive to such things, from the few who knew him as he truly was.

"Is the boy here then?" He asked his voice hollow in his ears. It was dark beyond the streetlights, likely past midnight. Why was the potter boy here?

Albus's answer was lost to Severus. A sudden sensation like he'd never known stole over him. A tingling urgent need to move set his heart leaping, and he was drawn towards the white-washed building to his right.

A gray mettle door barred him. He later had no memory of ripping it from his path. He sped through off-smelling hallways, the humming florescent lights making fluttering shadows of his black cape. He was approaching an eating area. The smell of beef blood, fresh and strong, hung over lesser smalls of dinner hours passed. The wooden kitchen door splintered.

On a grungy tile floor, beside a freezer, crouched the reason for his hast. The boy's face and hands were slightly bloody. Half thawed raw hamburger lay in red lumps before him.

The thin small figure's face came up. The eyes met Severus'. The face and body changed. A new face, like a gargoyle with yellow piercing eyes, was only half familiar from guilty repulsed glimpses in his mirror.

He felt himself shift in respond. A deafening vibrating growl leapt from him, and he attacked.

Albus, Headmaster of Hogwarts, stepped through the ravaged door and followed his potions master through the building.

He came to an open area. From around the corner a constant din of shrieks and growls echoed insanely, making his blood run cold. He was too old for this. Wand ready, Albus stepped slowly into the doorway. He saw only darkness.

His muttered lumos revealed a horrible seen, like something from his most evil nightmares.

Red blood and gruesome pulp smeared the white walls and white tile floor. A dark form in raged black –it could only be his potions master- appeared to be mauling a small fragile form. It wore loose muggle clothes, and its legs flailed helplessly. The two wrestled, in a horribly unequal match.

The shrieking and growling stopped suddenly. Half hidden by the potions master, the small form stilled.

He was too late. Albus was stunned. This could not be.

Then he leapt back in shock as a high shriek pierced his ears, and the snarling resumed as loud as before. Severus stood upright, and the small nearly skeletal form clung to his head and shoulders, writhing wildly. The . . . boy? . .. turned his head one way and then the other. He was struggaling, Albus realized, to reach Severus' neck! Severus fought, seizing the boy's hair as a handle, and bashing him into the walls with inhuman strength and speed. Neither face was visible.

The fighters parted and attacked several times. In a whirl Albus's eyes couldn't follow, Severus pinned the boy against the far wall, legs dangling in the air. He put his face to the smaller one's neck, and both were still. Slowly, the animal-like sounds faded to science. Severus lowered the limp form of Harry Potter to the floor.

Severus turned deliberately towards Albus as one awaiting judgment, with a face the headmaster hadn't been allowed to see for years. It had changed since he'd last seen it, maturing like his more familiar visage. Also, more and larger teeth were visible. Albus tore his eyes away.

The boy was a creature like Severus for a moment. Then, the features slid into a clearly human face but not one like Harry's at all, - almost like a young Severus. This could have been a trick of Albus's old eyes, because the change rapidly continued to reveal messy Potter hair and the boy's famous face. Abruptly, his signature thick rimed glasses popped into existence.

Odd.

There were some red smears on the boy's shirt. His arms carried livid pink scratches, but no spreading stain of blood as Albus had so feared. He watched in stunned silence as his ragged potions master stooped to gather the boy effortlessly into his arms, and swept from the room.

Albus paused a moment to examine the gruesome red lumps on the floor. They were raw ground meat with torn muggle packaging mingled in, not what he had feared at all. Relief made him light headed as he followed after Severus.

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Severus backtracked using his own sent as he carried the boy through the dinning room, down a dim hall, and down stairs he certainly did not remember scaling. The adrenalin rush of the fight was wearing off, leaving him quivering and his lungs raw. His mind, numb like ears after a loud explosion, was beginning to ask questions.

As he turned a corner, a familiar scent gave him a momentary image of thestrals and a lake.

He ran strait into Remus Lupen. The werewolf screeched and leapt back. Predictable cowardous. His wand came out. The brown eyes were huge.

"Oh calm down, wolf," Severus started scathingly. He was startled to silence. The voice that had come from his throat was deep, gravelly, and inhuman. The words were oddly thick. Severus realized that he hadn't -couldn't- return to his human appearance.

There was no use hiding now. He snatched the wand away to prevent being cursed in the back. He stalked past; head high with dignity he couldn't feel. He could only hope the wolf didn't recognize him. Otherwise, his life just got a whole lot worse.

Behind him, Remus' high and frightened voice stuttered, "S-Severus?" He did not respond. Perhaps the werewolf would fear him now and be less annoyingly friendly, having seen his true nature and his inhuman face.

One could only hope.

He stepped into the darkness, glancing at the ravage mettle door. Once outside he felt calmer immediately. The rush of traffic was oddly like the ocean, and the slight night breeze brought the sent of salty fast food above all else.

He waited for the headmaster and wolf to recover and come out. He was in no state for safe apperation, certainly not with another in his arms. They would take the Knight Bus back to the school.

To Be Continued . . .

A/N: I've proof read all of my chapters and hopefully fixed all the glaring 'Argus' not 'Agnus' errors (no, Filch has not had a sex-change operation). No doubt errors still abound, but this is as good as it gets without a beta.

In the next chapter: Harry goes 'home' to Hogwarts. How will everyone deal will this new development? We will hear more from the house elves, Filch, and the mysterious Mr. Shmied.

Review if you like this chapter. Or don't.