Chapter 2

After Severus had spat his threat with as much wickedness he could garner, he wasn't given the opportunity to relish the older wizard's stricken expression for very long.

As quickly as the fleeting appearance of deep regret had cleared from the man's features, Snape was snatched by the robes and hurtled into an unsuspecting Apparition.

What the fuck is happening? He couldn't understand the resentment this wizard had against him. It was his future self, for goodness sake!

Severus hated not being in the dominant position during complicated situations. He shoved the older wizard away from him the moment his surroundings ceased spinning. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Silence!"

"I did not give you permission to bring me here." Snape whirled around, eyeing the mediocre spread of houses in what he assumed to be Muggle London. "Where is here, by the way?"

"My home," the wizard sneered in response.

"I would not live here," Severus said, voice dripping with implied arrogance. He ignored the groan of disgust directed at him.

"I do not need to be reminded of what you would and wouldn't do. Walk."

He crossed his arms in defiance at the wizard's demand, who'd just pointed at the gated walkway leading to a home directly across from them.

"Fine. Hard way it is then."

Unsuccessfully ducking from his older-self's vicious snatch, Severus was forcibly pushed through the gate by a vice grip on the back of his neck.

He was the younger, more virulent wizard here! Shouldn't he be the stronger of the two? And Snape had a distinct impression that they weren't the exact same height either. Old fart must've added an inch to his boots...

With a harsh shove at his back, Severus was propelled through the front door, nearly colliding with the stair banister. "Are you quite finished? I get it! You're my big, bad future self. What are you trying to prove anyways? Shall we compare the size of our pricks now?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Snape senior slammed the front door shut behind him. Pulling himself to his full height, he slowly stalked across the entrance hall to the young man leaning rudely against his wife's china hutch. "Can you refrain from making witlessly snide remarks for one minute?"

"You're one to talk..." Staggered and peculiarly distressed, Severus inhaled as the back of his older-self's hand smarted across his cheekbone.

"Wake up, Junior! Don't you have any idea what has happened? The danger you are in?"

"Don't you mean the danger we are in?"

"YES! That implication should be obvious; I did not think I needed to say it. If this isn't successful, you will be forced to spend the rest of your existence in this reality."

"Fine! Send me back!" Snape thrust his hand beneath his collar. Snatching the gold chain, he yanked the blasted object over his head and shoved it into the older wizard's expecting hands.

A pathetically repressed laugh echoed in the silence around them.

"That was much easier than I had anticipated."

"What...?"

"I needed to be Stunned in my sleep before I'd finally given it up." Sending the younger man a challenging smirk, Snape the elder whirled away.

"How dare you trick me?" Hands balled at his side, Severus quickly followed the man through the closest door and into what he assumed was the study. Skidding in the doorway, the sight that awaited rendered him...uncomfortable. "You bested me. I'll give you that... so why are you frowning, now?"

A hand pulled through greasy hair in a typical display of worry that both men knew well. "This proves that a suspicion I had was correct and I do not like its implications."

"What suspicion was that?"

"That history never completely rewrites itself. Anything can change, so easily..."

The younger wizard snorted.

"Don't you take this lightly!"

"Bloody hell! Dammit, stop hitting me!"

"Show some sense and I wouldn't have to!"

Snape senior retreated to a worn armchair beside the hearth. With a flip of his wand, the fire erupted, setting his worry-lined face aglow.

Not expecting an invitation, Severus crossed the room to join him. Uncertainly, he perched himself on the settee across from his older-self and studied the man who was a combination of both familiarity and strangeness.

Except in their appearance, they didn't seem anything alike.

"So... when do I get to meet our wife?" He was anxious to know the color of her eyes. "I can't believe I actually succumbed to such a mundane tradition. Sap." Smirking, he enjoyed the sight of the stoic wizard stiffen, hand fisting around his wand.

"You will not meet her."

Severus snorted. "From the sound of it, you still have a few bugs to work out before I'm sent back. You cannot intend to hide me forever."

Jerking forward in his seat, Snape senior spitefully eyed the young man across from him. "No, but I will hide you for as long as it takes to finish the potion that will send you back. The first time you encountered...the first time I encountered Hermione, I nearly killed her. It was an accident, of course, but not one I am eager to relive again...especially from this side of my existence."

Severus fidgeted uncomfortably at hearing this. Hermione. He hadn't thoughtlessly hurt or intentionally killed another in years. Not since before the Dark Lord's fall...don't think about it. He's dead. It's over.

The young man's defiant manner appeared to have calmed, and for logical reasons. Whoever this woman was, his future self seemed to truly love her.

I need to know the color of her eyes. "How did it happen?" the younger of the two asked cautiously.

Reluctant at first, Snape turned his face towards the fire before speaking. "After I'd read the date on the Daily Prophet, I bolted down the street like a frightened first year. I don't even now why I ran like that, now that I think about it... Well, I hadn't paid attention...I didn't care where I was going. I collided into a young woman who'd just exited the bookstore. Not only did my shoulder strike her in the jaw...breaking it...I'd also sent her crashing through the glass paneling in the door."

"That's... horrible." The man's eyes had a strange emotion behind them that Severus couldn't put a name to. Unable to stand it, he turned his attention to the bookcases.

"I know. Which is why you're going to be staying in here for the time being."

"You want me to sleep in the study?" In the very least, he acknowledged that he had to stay in this house. No one in this reality could see him. "Does she even know about me...us? That all this had happened to you... and is happening again?"

Snape senior paled. "No... she doesn't. And I don't intend to tell her."

"Don't you think she'd find out with me..." Severus choked on his sentence when the wizard quickly flicked his wand in response to his words. A bookcase in the corner of the room slammed open to reveal a hidden passage.

A dark, cramped passage that obviously descended beneath the house.

Severus jumped from his seat, face lit in agitation. "If you think I'm going to let you lock me down there, you can go bugger yourself!"

The older man slowly raised himself, matching his younger-self's defensive stance. "This is not up for debate."

"I am not staying in there."

"You don't have a choice."

"No."

"This is not your house, you foolish boy! You are not my guest, and you're barely a step above prisoner, so you'd..."

He'd said the wrong thing.

The younger man blanched, sharply turning on his heel to flee from this house at the sound of 'prisoner' spitting from the madman's mouth.

"Get back here!" Snape senior bolted after him in chase.

These two men, unfortunately, weren't the only two occupants in this house. To his horror, Snape recognized the sounds of his wife's arrival in the entrance hall. And apparently, mother fate was close on her heels.

The young man was too quick for him. The Stunning spell he'd sent at his back missed the boy by inches.

"What the..." a feminine voice on the other side of the door gasped half a second before it cracked against her face.

The force of the blow to her jaw and the violent speed of the stranger on the other side sent Hermione flying backwards, her head and shoulders crashing into the glass cabinet doors of the china hutch.

"HERMIONE!" her husband bellowed in a ghastly, grief-stricken voice that sounded disturbingly memorable in his ears.